A SHEAF 



A SHEAF 



BT 

JOHN GALSWORTHY 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1916 






copteight, 1916, by 
Chaeles Sckibner's Sons 



Published September, 1916 



/^ 



J -4;9I6 




'CI.A4387i2 



TO 
WILLIAM ARCHER 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 

This volume is but a garnering of non-creative 
writings; mostly pleas of some sort or ^other — 
wild oats of a novelist, which the writer has been 
asked to bind up. He cannot say that he had 
any wanton pleasure in sowing any of them; and, 
lest there be others of the same opinion as the 
anonymous gentleman who thus joyously ad- 
dressed him last July: — *But there — I suppose 
you are getting a bit out of it. Men of your 
calibre will do anything for filthy lucre — you old 
and cunning reptile!' — he mentions that he has 
not; personally, profited a penny by anything 
in this volume, and that the future proceeds 
therefrom will be given to St. Dunstan's, and 
the National Institute for the Blind, London. 

In these days of manifold human misery, 
many will be impatient reading some of the 
pleas written before the war; but the war will 
not last for ever, and in the peace that follows 
life will be rougher, the need for those pleas 
more insistent even than it was. 

vii 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 

The writings have been pruned a little, and 
two or three have not yet met the public eye. 

To the many editors of Journals and Reviews 
wherein the others have appeared — cordial thanks. 

J. G. 

August, 1916. 



VUl 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Much Cry — Little Wool 
on the treatment of animals: 

for love of beasts 3 

reverie of a sportsman 33 

the slaughter of animals for food . . 48 

on performing animals 72 

vivisection of dogs 81 

horses in mines 88 

the docking of horses' tails .... 94 

aigrettes 96 

concerning laws: 

on procedure in parliament 98 

the nature of laws 101 

PASSING 108 

THE MODERN STOIC: AN ILL-NATURED DUOLOGUE 11 

ON PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT: 

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 120 

the spirit of punishment 150 

an unpublished preface 159 

on the position of women: 

"gentles, let us rest!" 164 

appeal to the press 184 

ix 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ON SOCIAL UNREST 188 

ON peace: 

the will to peace 205 

peace of the air 210 

The War 

valley of the shadow 215 

CREDO I 216 

FRANCE 219 

REVEILLE 221 

FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 224 

THE HOPE OF LASTING PEACE 242 

DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 250 

LITERATURE AND THE WAR 263 

ART AND THE WAR 270 

TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO 283 

^ SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 288 

TOTALLY DISABLED 313 

CARTOON 318 

HARVEST 322 

And — After ? 

PRELUDE 327 

freedom and PRIVILEGE 334 

X 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



the nation and training 341 

health, humanity, and procedure .... 354 

a last word 363 

The Islands op the Blessed 369 



XI 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 



ON THE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

(A Paper in the Pall Mall Gazette, 1912) 
1§ 

We had left my rooms and were walking briskly 
down the street toward the river^ when my friend 
stopped before the window of a small shop and 
said: 

"Goldfish!'' 

I* looked at him very doubtfully; one had 
known him so long that one never looked at him 
in any other way. 

''Can you imagine/' he went on, "how any 
sane person can find pleasure in the sight of those 
swift things swimming for ever and ever in a 
bowl about twice the length of their own tails?" 

"No/' I said, "I cannot — ^though, of course, 
they're very pretty." 

"That is, no doubt, the reason why they are 
kept in misery." 

* For "I" read almost any one. — J. G. 

3 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

Again I looked at him; there is nothing in the 
world I distrust so much as irony. 

"People don't think about these things/' I said. 

"You are right/' he answered, "they do not. 
Let me give you some evidence of that. ... I 
was travelling last spring in a far country, and 
made an expedition to a certain woodland spot. 
Outside the little forest inn I noticed a ring of 
people and dogs gathered round a gray animal 
rather larger than a cat. It had a sharp-nosed 
head too small for its body, and bright black 
eyes, and was moving restlessly round and round 
a pole to which it was tethered by a chain. If a 
dog came near, it hunched its bushy back and 
made a rush at him. Except for that it seemed a 
shy-souled, timid little thing. In fact, by its 
eyes, and the way it shrank into itself, you could 
tell it was scared of everjrthing around. Now, 
there was a small, thin-faced man in a white 
jacket, holding up a tub on end, and explaining 
to the people that this was the little creature's 
habitat, and that it wanted to get back under- 
neath; and sure enough, when he held the tub 
within its reach, the little animal stood up at 
once on its hind legs and pawed, evidently try- 
ing to get the tub to fall down and cover it. The 
people all laughed at this; the man laughed, too, 
and the little creature went on pawing. At last 

4 






FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

the man said: 'Mind your back legs, Patsy!' 
and let the tub fall. The show was over. But 
presently another lot came up; the white-coated 
man lifted the tub, and it began all over again. 

" 'What is that animal?' I asked him. 

" 'A 'coon.' 

'''How old?' 

Three years — too old to tame.' 
Where did you catch it?' 

" 'In the forest — ^lots of 'coons in the forest.' 

" 'Do they live in the open, or in holes?' 

" 'Up in the trees, sure; they only gits in the 
hollows when it rains.' 

'"Oh! they live in the open? Then isn't it 
queer she should be so fond of her tub ? ' 

" 'Oh,' he said, 'she do that to git away from 
people!' and he laughed — a genial little man. 
'She not like people and dogs. She too old to 
tame. She know me, though.' 

"'I see,' I said. 'You take the tub off her, 
and show her to the people, and put it back again. 
Yes, she would know you ! ' 

" 'Yes,' he repeated rather proudly, 'she know 
me — Patsy, Patsy ! Presently, you bet, we catch 
lot more, and make a cage, and put them in.' 

"He was gazing very kindly at the little crea- 
ture, who on her gray hind legs was anxiously 
begging for the tub to come down and hide her, 

5 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

and I said: ^But isn^t it rather a miserable life 
for this poor little devil ? ' 

"He gave me a very queer look. 'There^s lots 
of people/ he said — and his voice sounded as if 
I'd hurt him — ^ never gits a chance to see a 
'coon' — and he dropped the tub over the rac- 
coon. . . . 

"Well ! Can you conceive anything more piti- 
ful than that poor little wild creature of the open, 
begging and begging for a tub to fall over it, 
and shut out all the light and air f Doesn't it 
show what misery caged things have to go 
through?" 

"But, surely/' I said, "those other people 
would feel the same as you. The little white- 
coated man was only a servant." 

He seemed to run them over in his memory. 
"Not one!" he answered slowly. "Not a single 
one ! I am sure it never even occurred to them 
— ^why should it? They were there to enjoy 
themselves." 

We walked in silence till I said: 

"I can't help feeling that your little white- 
coated man was acting good-heartedly according 
to his lights." 

"Quite! And after all what are the sufferings 
of a raccoon compared with the enlargement of 
the human mind ? " 

6 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

"Don't be extravagant! You know he didn't 
mean to be cruel." 

"Does a man ever mean to be cruel? He 
merely makes or keeps his living; but to make 
or keep his living he will do an3rthing that does 
not absolutely prick to his heart through the 
skin of his indolence or his obtuseness." 

"I think/' I said, "that you might have ex- 
pressed that less cynically, even if it's true." 

"Nothing that's true is cynical, and nothing 
that is cjmical is true. Indifference to the suf- 
fering of beasts always comes from overabsorp- 
tion in our own comfort." 

"Absorption, not overabsorption, perhaps." 

"Ha! Let us see that! Very soon after see- 
ing the raccoon, I was staying at the most cele- 
brated health resort of that country, and, walk- 
ing in its grounds, I came on an aviary. In the 
upper cages were canaries, and in the lower cage 
a splendid hawk. It was as large as our buzzard 
hawk, brown-backed and winged, light under- 
neath, and with the finest dark-brown eyes of 
any bird I ever saw. The cage was quite ten 
feet each way; a noble allowance for the very 
soul of freedom! The bird had every luxury. 
There was water, and a large piece of raw meat 
that hadn't been touched. Yet it was never still 
for a moment, flying from perch to perch, and 

7 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

dropping to the ground again and again so 
lightly, to run, literally run, up to the bars to 
see if perhaps — ^they were not there. Its face 
was as intelhgent as any dog's " 

My friend muttered something I couldn't 
catch, and then went on: 

"That afternoon I took the drive for which 
one visits that hotel, and it occurred to me to ask 
my chauffeur what kind of hawk it was. 'Well,' 
he said, ' I ain't just too sure what it is they've 
got caged up now; they changes 'em so often.' 

" 'Do you mean,' I said, 'that they die in cap- 
tivity?' 

" 'Yes,' he answered, 'them big birds soon 
gits moulty and go off.' Well, when I paid my 
bill I went up to the semblance of proprietor — 
it was one of those establishments where the only 
creature responsible is 'Co.' — and I said: 

" 'I see you keep a hawk out there?' 

" 'Yes. Fine bird. Quite an attraction!' 

" 'People like to look at it?' 

" 'Just so. They're imcommon — ^that sort.' 

" 'Well,' I said, 'I call it cruel to keep a hawk 
shut up like that.' 

'"Cruel? Why? What's a hawk, anyway — 
cruel devils enough ! ' 

" 'My dear sir,' I said, 'they earn their living 
just like men, without caring for other creatures' 

8 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

sufferings. You are not shut up, apparently, for 
doing that. Good-bye.' " 

As he said this, my friend looked at me, and added : 

"You think that was a lapse of taste. What 
would you have said to a man who cloaked the 
cruelty of his commercial instincts by blaming a 
hawk for being what Nature made him?'' 

There was such feeling in his voice that I hesi- 
tated long before answering. 

"Well," I said, at last, "in England, anyway, 
we only keep such creatures in captivity for 
scientific purposes. I doubt if you could find a 
single instance nowadays of its being done just 
as a commercial attraction." 

He stared at me. 

"Yes," he said, "we do it publicly and scien- 
tifically, to enlarge the mind. But let me put to 
you this question. Which do you consider has 
the larger mind — ^the man who has satisfied his 
idle curiosity by staring at all the caged animals 
of the earth, or the man who has been brought up 
to feel that to keep such indomitable creatures 
as hawks and eagles, wolves and panthers, shut 
up, to gratify mere curiosity, is a dreadful thing?" 

To that singular question I knew not what to 
answer. At last I said: 

"I think you underrate the pleasure they give. 
We English are so awfully fond of animals !" 

9 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

2§ 

We had entered Battersea Park by now, and 
since my remark about our love of beasts we had 
not spoken. A wood-pigeon which had been 
strutting before us just then flew up into a tree, 
and began puffing out its breast. Seeking to 
break the silence, I said: 

"Pigeons are so complacent.^' 

My friend smiled in his dubious way, and an- 
swered : 

"Do you know the 'blue rock'?" 

"No.'' 

"Ah! there you have a pigeon who has less 
complacency than any living thing. You see, it 
depends on circumstances. Suppose, for instance, 
that we happened to keep Our Selves — ^perhaps 
the most complacent class of human beings — in 
a large space enclosed by iron railings, feeding 
them up carefully, imtil their natural instincts 
caused them to run up and down at a consider- 
able speed from side to side of the enclosure. 
And suppose when we noticed that they had at- 
tained the full speed and strength of their legs, 
we took them out, holding them gingerly in order 
that they might not become exhausted by strug- 
gling, and placed them in little tin compartments 
so dark and stuffy that they would not care of 

10 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

their own accord to stay there, and then stood 
back about thirty paces, with a shotgun, and 
pressed a spring which let the tin compartment 
collapse. And then, as each one of Our Selves 
ran out, we let fly with the right barrel and pep- 
pered him in the tail, whereon, if he fell, we sent 
a dog out to fetch him in by the slack of his 
breeches, and after holding him idly for a min- 
ute by the neck, we gave it a wring round; or, 
if he did not fall, we prayed heaven at once, and 
let fly with the left barrel. Do you think in these 
circumstances Our Selves would be complacent?'' 

"Don't be absurd!'' I said. 

"Very well," he rephed, "I will come to 'blue 
rocks' — do you still maintain that they are so 
complacent as to deserve their fate?" 

"I don't know — I know nothing about their 
fate." 

"What the eyes do not swallow, the heart does 
not throw up! There are other places, but — 
have you been to Monte Carlo?" 

"No, and I should never think of going there." 

"Oh, well," he answered, "it's a great place; 
but there's just one little thing about it, and 
that's in the matter of those 'blue rocks.' You'll 
agree, I suppose, that one can't complain of people 
amusing themselves in any way they like, so long 

as they hurt no one but themselves " 

11 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

I caught him up: "I don't agree, at all." 

He smiled: "Yours is perhaps the English 
point of view. Still " 

"It's more important that they shouldn't hurt 
themselves than that they shouldn't hurt pigeons, 
if that's what you're driving at," I said. 

"There wouldn't appear to you, I suppose, to 
be any connection in the matter?" 

"I tell you," I repeated, "I know nothing about 
pigeon-shooting!" 

He stared very straight before him. 

"Imagine," he said, "a blue sea, and a half- 
circle of grass, with a low wall. Imagine, on that 
grass, five traps, from which lead paths — ^like the 
rays of a star — ^to the central point on the base 
of that half-circle. And imagine on that central 
point a gentleman with a double-barrelled gim, 
another man, and a retriever dog. And imagine 
one of those traps opening, and a little dazed 
gray bird (not a bit like that fellow you saw just 
now) emerge, and fly perhaps six yards. And 
imagine the sound of the gun and the little bird 
dipping in its flight, but struggling on. And 
imagine the sound of the gun again, and the lit- 
tle bird falling to the ground and wriggling on 
along it. And imagine the retriever dog run for- 
ward and pick it up and walk slowly back with 
it, still quivering, in his mouth. Or imagine, 

12 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

once in a way, the little bird drop dead as a stone 
at the first sound. Or imagine again, that it 
winces at the shots, yet carries on over the 
boundary, to fall into the sea. Or — ^but this very 
seldom — ^imagine it wing up and out, unhurt, to 
the first freedom it has ever known. My friend, 
the joke is this: To the man who lets no little 
bird away to freedom comes much honour, and a 
nice round sum of money! Do you still think 
there is no connection?" 

"Well/' I said, "it doesn't sound too sports- 
manlike. And yet, I suppose, looking at it 
quite broadly, it does minister in a sort of way to 
the law of the survival of the fittest." 

"In which species — man or pigeon?" 

"The sportsman is necessary to the expansion 
of Empire. Besides you must remember that one 
does not expect high standards at Monte Carlo." 

He looked at me. "Do you never read any 
sporting paper?" he asked. 

"No." 

"Did you ever hunt the carted stag?" 

"No, I never did." 

"Well, 3^ou have been coursing, anjrway." 

"Certainly; but there's no comparing that 
with pigeon-shooting." 

"In coursing, I admit," he said, "there's plea- 
sure to the dogs, and some chance for the hare, 

13 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

which; besides, is not in captivity. Also that where 
there is no coursing there are few hares, in these 
days. And yet — " he seemed to fall into a 
reverie. 

Then, looking at me in a queer, mournful sort 
of way, he said suddenly: 

"I don't wish to attack that sport, when 
there are so many much worse, but by way of 
showing you how liable all these things are to 
contribute to the improvement of our species, I 
will tell you a httle experience of my own. When 
I was at college, I was in a rather sporting set; 
we hunted, and played at racing, and loved to be 
'au courant' with all that sort of thing. One 
year it so happened that the imcle of one of us 
won the Waterloo Cup with a greyhound whose 
name was — ^never mind. We became at once 
ardent lovers of the sport of coursing, consumed 
by the desire to hold a Waterloo Cup Meeting in 
miniature, with rabbits for hares and our own 
terriers for greyhounds. Well, we held it; sixteen 
of us nominating our dogs. Now, kindly note 
that of those sixteen, eight at least were mem- 
bers of the aristocracy, and all had been at public 
schools of standing and repute. For the purposes 
of our meeting, of course, we required fifteen 
rabbits caught and kept in bags. These we or- 
dered of a local blackguard, with a due margin 

14 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

over to provide against such of the rabbits as 
might die of fright before they were let out; or 
be too terrified to run after being loosed. We 
made the fellow whose uncle had won the Water- 
loo Cup judge, apportioned among ourselves the 
other officers, and assembled — the judge on horse- 
back, in case a rabbit might happen to run, say, 
fifty yards. Assembled with us were many local 
cads, two fourth-rate bookies, our excited, yap- 
ping terriers, and twenty-four bagged rabbits. 
The course was cleared. Two of us advanced, 
holding our terriers by the loins; the judge signed 
that he was ready; the first rabbit was turned 
down. It crept out of the bag, and squatted, 
close to the ground, with its ears laid back. The 
local blackguard stirred it with his foot. It 
crept two yards, and squatted closer. All the 
terriers began shrieking their little souls out, all 
the cads began to yell, but the rabbit did not 
move — its heart, you see, was broken. At last 
the local blackguard took it up, and wrung its 
neck. After that some rabbits ran, and some 
did not, till all were killed ! The terrier of one of 
us was judged victor by him whose uncle had 
won the Waterloo Cup; and we went back to 
our colleges to drink everybody's health. Now, 
my friend, mark! We were sixteen decent 
youths, converted by infection into sixteen rab- 

15 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

bit-catching cads. Two of us are dead; but the 
rest of us — ^what do we think of it now? I tell 
you this Httle incident, to confirm you in your 
f eehng that pigeon-shooting, coursing, and the Hke, 
tend to improve our species, even in England.'' 



3§ 

Before I could comment on my friend's narra- 
tive, we were spattered with mud by passing riders, 
and stopped to repair the damage to our coats. 

''Jolly for my new coat!" I said: ''Do you 
notice, by the way, that they are cutting tails 
longer, this spring. More becoming to a fellow, 
I think." 

He raised those quizzical eyebrows of his, and 
murmured : 

"And horses' tails shorter. Did you see those 
that passed just now?" 

"No." 

"There were none!" 

"Nonsense!" I said: "My dear fellow, you 
really are obsessed about beasts! They were 
just ordinary." 

"Quite — a few scrubby hairs, and a wriggle." 

"Now, please," I said, "don't begin to talk 
of the cruelty of docking horses' tails, and tell 
me a story of an old horse in a pond." 

16 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

"No/' he answered, "for I should have to in- 
vent that. What I was going to say was this: 
Which do you think the greater fools in the 
matter of fashion — ^men or women?'' 

"Oh! Women." 

"Why?" 

"There's always some sense at the bottom of 
men's fashions." 

" Even of docking tails ? " 

"You can't compare it, anyway," I said, 
"with such a fashion as the wearing of ^aigrettes.' 
That's a cruel fashion if you like !" 

" Ah ! But you see," he said, "the women who 
wear them are ignorant of its cruelty. If they 
were not, they would never wear them. No 
gentlewoman wears them, now that the facts 
have come out." 

"What is that you say?" I remarked. 

He looked at me gravely. 

"Do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that 
any woman of gentle instincts, who knows that the 
'aigrette,' as they call it, is a nuptial plume 
sported by the white egret only during the nest- 
ing season — and that, in order to obtain it, the 
mother birds are shot, and that, after their death, 
all their young die, practically, from hunger and 
exposure — do you mean to tell me that any gentle- 
woman, knowing that, wears them? Whyl 

17 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

most women are mothers themiselves! What 
would they think of gods who shot women with 
babies in arms for the sake of obtaining their 
white skins or their crop of hair to wear on their 
heads, eh?" 

"But, my dear fellow/' I said, "you see these 
plimaes about all over the place !'' 

"Only on people who don't mind wearing imi- 
tation stuff." 

I gaped at him. 

"You need not look at me like that/' he said. 
"A woman goes into a shop. She knows that 
real 'aigrettes' mean killing mother birds and 
starving all their nestlings. Therefore, if she's a 
real gentlewoman she doesn't ask for a real 
'aigrette.' But still less does she ask to be sup- 
plied with an imitation article so good that peo- 
ple will take her for the wearer of the real thing. 
I put it to you, would she want to be known as an 
encourager of such a practice? You can never 
have seen a lady wearing an 'aigrette.' " 

"What!" I said. "What?" 

"So much for the woman who knows about 
'aigrettes,' " he went on. "Now for the woman 
who doesn't. Either, when she is told these facts 
about 'aigrettes' she sets them down as 'hys- 
terical stuff,' or she is simply too 'out of it' to 
know anything. Well, she goes in and asks for 

18 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

an 'aigrette/ Do you think they sell her the 
real thing — I mean, of course, in England — 
knowing that it involves the shooting of mother 
birds at breeding time? I put it to you: Would 
they?" 

His inability to grasp the real issues aston- 
ished me, and I said: 

"You and I happen to have read the evidence 
about 'aigrettes' and the opinion of the House of 
Lords' Committee that the feathers of egrets im- 
ported into Great Britain are obtained by killing 
the birds during the breeding season; but you 
don't suppose, do you, that people whose com- 
mercial interests are bound up with the selling of 
'aigrettes' are going to read it, or believe it if 
they do read it?" 

"That," he answered, "is cynical, if you like. 
I feel sure that, in England, people do not sell 
suspected articles about which there has been so 
much talk and inquiry as there has been about 
'aigrettes,' without examining in good faith into 
the facts of their origin. No, believe me, none of 
the 'aigrettes' sold in England can have grown 
on birds." 

"This is fantastic," I said. "Why! if what 
you're saying is true, then — ^then real 'aigrettes' 
are all artificial; but that — ^that would be cheat- 
ing!" 

19 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

"Oh, no!'' he said. "You see, 'aigrettes' are 
in fashion. The word 'real' has therefore become 
parliamentary. People don't want to be cruel, 
but they must have 'real aigrettes.' So, all these 
'aigrettes' are 'real,' unless the customer has a 
qualm, and then they are 'real imitation ai- 
grettes.' We are a highly civilised people !" 

"That is very clever," I said, "but how about 
the statistics of real aigrette plumes imported into 
this country?" 

He answered like a flash: "Oh, those, of course, 
are only brought here to be exported again at once 
to countries where they do not mind confessing 
to cruelty; yes, all exported, except — well, those 
that arenH ! " 

"Oh!" I said. "I see! You have been speak- 
ing ironically all this time." 

"Have you grasped that?" he answered. 
^'Capital!" 

After that we walked in silence. 

"The fact is," I said presently, "ordinary peo- 
ple, shopmen and customers alike, never bother 
their heads about such things at all." 

"Yes," he replied sadly, "they take the line 
of least resistance. It is just that which gives 
Fashion its chance to make such fools of them." 

"You have yet to prove that it does make fools 
of them." 

20 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

"I thought I had; but no matter. Take 
horses' tails — what's left of them — do you de- 
fend that fashion?" 

^^Well/' I said, ''I " 

'^ Would you if you were a horse?" 

"If you mean that I am a donkey ?" 

"Oh, no! Not at all!" 

"It's going too far/' I said, "to call docking 
cruel." 

"Personally," he answered, "I don't think it 
is going too far. It's painful in itself, and heaven 
alone knows what irritation horses have to suffer 
from flies through being tailless. I admit that it 
saves a little brushing, and that some people are 
under the delusion that it averts carriage accidents. 
But put cruelty and utility aside, and look at it 
from the point of view of fashion. Can anybody 
say it doesn't spoil a horse's looks?" 

"You know perfectly well," I said, "that many 
people think it smartens him up tremendously. 
They regard a certain kind of horse as nothing with 
a tail; just as some men are nothing with beards !" 

"The parallel with man does not hold, my 
friend. We are not shaved — with or against our 
wills — ^by demigods!" 

"Exactly! And isn't that in itself an admis- 
sion that we are superior to beasts, and have a 
right to some say in their appearance?" 

21 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

"I will not/' he answered, '^for one moment 
allow that men are superior to horses in point of 
looks. Take yourself, or any other personable 
man, and stand him up against a thoroughbred, 
and ask your friends to come and look. How 
much of their admiration do you think you will 
get?" 

It was not the sort of question I could answer. 

"I am not speaking at random," he went on; 
"I have seen the average lord walking beside the 
average winner of the Derby." He cackled dis- 
agreeably. 

"But it's just on this point of looks that peo- 
ple defend docking," I said. "They breed the 
horses, and have a right to their own taste. 
Many people dislike long, swishy appendages." 

"And bull-terriers, or Yorkshires, or Great 
Danes, with natural ears; and fox-terriers and 
spaniels with uncut tails; and women with merely 
the middles so small as Nature gave them?" 

"If you're simply going to joke " 

"I never was more serious. The whole thing 
is of a piece, and summed up in the word ^ smart,' 
which you used just now. That word, sir, is the 
guardian angel of all fashions, and if you don't 
mind my saying so, fashions are the guardian 
angels of vulgarity. Now, a horse is not a vulgar 
animal, and I can never get away from the 

22 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

thought that to dock his tail must hurt his feel- 
ing of refinement/' 

"Well; if that's all, I dare say he'll get over 
it." 

"But will the man who does it?" 

"You must come with me to the Horse Show," 
I said, " and look at the men who have to do with 
horses; then you'll know if such a thing as dock- 
ing the tails of these creatures can do them harm 
or not. And, by the way, you talk of refinement 
and vulgarity. What is your test? Where is 
the standard? It's all a matter of taste." 

"You want me to define these things?" he 
asked. 

"Yes." 

"Very well! Do you beHeve in what we call 
the instincts of a gentleman?" 

"Of course." 

"Such as — ^the instinct to be self-controlled; 
not to be rude or intolerant; not to 'slop over'; 
not to fuss, nor to cry out; to hold your head up, 
so that people refrain from taking liberties; to 
be ready to do things for others, to be chary of 
asking others to do things for you, and grateful 
when they do them." 

"Yes," I said, "all these I believe in." 

"What central truth do you imagine that these 
instincts come from?" 

23 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

"Well; they're all such a matter of course — I 
don't think I ever considered.'' 

"If by any chance," he replied, "you ever do, 
you will find they come from an innate worship 
of balance, of the just mean; an inborn reverence 
for due proportion, a natural sense of harmony 
and rhythm, and a consequent mistrust of ex- 
travagance. What is a bounder? Just a man 
without sufficient sense of proportion to know 
that he is not so important in the scheme of things 
as he thinks he is!" 

"You are right there!" 

"Very well. Refinement is a quality of the 
individual who has — and conforms to — a true 
(not a conventional) sense of proportion; and 
vulgarity is either the natural conduct of people 
without that sense of proportion, or of people 
who imitate and reproduce the tricks of refine- 
ment wholesale, without any real feeling for pro- 
portion; or again, it is mere conscious departure 
from the sense of proportion for the sake of cut- 
ting a dash." 

"Ah!" I said, "and to which of these kinds of 
vulgarity is the fashion of docking horses' tails a 
guardian angel?" 

"Imagine," he answered gravely, "that you 
dock your horse's tail. You are either horribly 
deficient in feeling for a perfectly proportioned 

24 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

horse or you imitate what you believe — Goodness 
knows why — ^to be the refined custom of docking 
horses^ tails without considering the question of 
proportion at all." 

"Yes/' I said, "but what makes so many peo- 
ple do it; if there isn't something in it, either use- 
ful or ornamental?" 

"Because people as a rule do not love propor- 
tion; they love the grotesque. You have only to 
look at their faces, which are very good indications 
of their souls." 

"You have begged the question," I said 
"\Vho are you to say that the perfect horse is not 
the horse ?" 

"With the imperfect tail?" 

"Imperfect? Again, you're begging." 

"As Nature made it, then. Oh!" he went on 
with vehemence, "think of the luxury of having 
your own tail. Think of the cool swish of it. 
Think of the real beauty of it! Think of the 
sheer hideousness of all that great front balanced 
behind by a few scrub hairs and a wriggle ! It be- 
came 'smart' to dock horses' tails, and smart to 
wear 'aigrettes.' 'Smart' — 'neat' — 'efficient' — 
for aU except the horse and the poor egrets." 

"Your argimient," I said, "is practically noth- 
ing but aesthetics." 

He fixed his eyes upon my hat. 
25 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

"Well," he said slowly, "I admit that neither 
on horse nor on man would long tails go at all 
well with that bowler hat of yours. Odd how all 
of a piece taste is 1 From a man's hat, or a horse's 
tail, we can reconstruct the age we Uve in, like 
that scientist, you remember, who reconstructed 
a mastodon from its funny-bone." 

The thought went sharply through my head: 
Is his next tirade to be on mastodons ? Till I re- 
membered with relief that the animal was ex- 
tinct, at all events in England. 



4§ 

With but little further talk we had nearly 
reached my rooms, when he said abruptly: 

"A lark! Can't you hear it? Over there, in 
that wretched little gold-fish shop again." 

But I could only hear the sounds of traffic. 

"It's your imagination," I said. "It really is 
too lively on the subject of birds and beasts." 

"I tell you," he persisted, "there's a caged lark 
there. Very likely, half a dozen." 

"My dear fellow," I said, "suppose there are! 
We could go and buy them and set them free, 
but it would only encourage the demand. Or 
we could assault the shopmen. Do you recom- 
mend that?" 

26 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

"I don't joke on this subject," he answered 
shortly. 

"But surely/' I said, "if we can't do anything 
to help the poor things, we had better keep our 
ears from hearing." 

"And our eyes shut? Suppose we all did that, 
what sort of world should we be living in?" 

"Very much the same as now, I expect." 

" Blasphemy ! Rank, hopeless blasphemy ! " 

"Please don't exaggerate!" 

"I am not. There is only one possible defence 
of that attitude, and it's this: The world is — and 
was deliberately meant to be — divided into two 
halves: the half that suffers and the half that 
benefits by that suffering." 

"WeU?" 

"Is it so?" 

"Perhaps." 

"You acquiesce in that definition of the world's 
nature? Very well, if you belong to the first 
half you are a poor-spirited creature, consciously 
acquiescing in your own misery. If to the sec- 
ond, you are a brute, consciously acquiescing in 
your own happiness, at the expense of others. 
WeU, which are you?" 

"I have not said that I belong to either." 

"There are only two halves to a whole. No, 
my friend, disabuse yourself once for all of that 

27 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

cheap and comfortable philosophy of shutting 
your eyes to what you think you can't remedy, 
unless you are willing to be labelled 'brute.' 'He 
who is not with me is against me/ you know." 

"Well/' I said, "after that, perhaps you'll be 
good enough to tell me what I can do by making 
myself miserable over things I can't help?" 

"I will/' he answered. "In the first place, 
kindly consider that you are not living in a private 
world of your own. Everything you say and do 
and think has its effect on everybody around you. 
For example, if you feel, and say loudly enough, 
that it is an infernal shame to keep larks and 
other wild song-birds in cages, you will infal- 
libly infect a number of other people with that 
sentiment, and in course of time those people 
who feel as you do will become so numerous that 
larks, thrushes, blackbirds, and linnets will no 
longer be caught and kept in cages. Whereas, if 
you merely think, 'Oh! this is dreadful, quite 
too dreadful, but, you see, I can do nothing; 
therefore consideration for myself and others de- 
mands that I shall stop my ears and hold my 
tongue,' then, indeed, nothing will ever be done, 
and larks, blackbirds, etc., will continue to be 
caught and prisoned. How do you imagine it 
ever came about that bears and bulls and badgers 
are no longer baited; cocks no longer openly en- 

28 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

couraged to tear each other in pieces; donkeys 
no longer beaten to a pulp? Only by people 
going about and shouting out that these things 
made them uncomfortable. How did it come 
about that more than half the population of this 
country are not still classed as 'serfs' under the 
law ? Simply because a few of our ancestors were 
made unhappy by seeing their fellow creatures 
owned and treated like dogs, and roundly said so 
— in fact, were not ashamed to be sentimental 
humanitarians like me.'' 

"That is all obvious. But my point is that 
there is moderation in all things, and a time for 
everything." 

"By your leave," he said, "there is little 
moderation desirable when we are face to face 
with real suffering, and, as a general rule, no time 
like the present." 

"But there is, as you were saying just now, 
such a thing as a sense of proportion. I cannot 
see that it's my business to excite myself about 
the caging of larks, when there are so many much 
greater evils." 

"Forgive my saying so," he answered, "but if 
when a caged lark comes under your nose, excite- 
ment does not take hold of you, with or against 
your will, there is mighty little chance of your 
getting excited about anything. For, consider 

29 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

what it means to be a caged lark — ^what pining 
and misery for that httle creature, which only 
lives for its life up in the blue. Consider what 
blasphemy against Nature, and what an insult 
to all that is high and poetic in Man, it is to cage 
such an exquisite thing of freedom !" 

"You forget that it is done out of love for the 
song — ^to bring it into towns where people can't 
otherwise hear it.'' 

"It is done for a living — and that people with- 
out imagination may squeeze out of unhappy 
creatures a little momentary gratification ! " 

"It is not a crime to have no imagination." 

"No, sir; but neither is the lack of it a thing 
to pride one's self on, or pass by in silence, when 
it inflicts suffering." 

"I am not defending the custom of caging 
larks." 

"No; but you are responsible for its continu- 
ance." 

"I?" 

"You! and all those other people who believe 
in minding their own business." 

"Really!" I said; "you must not attack peo- 
ple on that ground. We cannot all be busy- 
bodies!" 

"The Saints forbid !" he answered. "But when 
a thing exists which you really abhor — as you do 
this — ^I do wish you would consider a little 

30 



FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 

whether, in letting it strictly alone, you are 
minding your own business on principle, or be- 
cause it is so jolly comfortable to do so/^ 

"Speaking for myself " 

"Yes,'' he broke in; "quite! But let me ask 
you one thing: Have you, as a member of the 
human race, any feeling that you share in the ad- 
vancement of its gentleness, of its sense of beauty 
and justice — ^that, in proportion as the human race 
becomes more lovable and lovely, you, too, be- 
come more lovable and lovely?" 

"Naturally.'' 

"Then is it not your business to support all 
that you feel makes for that advancing perfec- 
tion?" 

"I don't say that it isn't." 

"In that case it is not your business to stop 
your ears, and shut your eyes, and hold your 
tongue when you come across wild song-birds 
caged." 

But we had reached my rooms. 

"Before I go in," I said, "there is just one 
little thing I've got to say to you: Don't you 
think that, for a man with your ^ sense of propor- 
tion,' you exaggerate the importance of beasts 
and their happiness?" 

He looked at me for a long time without speak- 
ing, and when he did speak, it was in a queer, 
abstracted voice: 

31 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

"I have often thought over that," he said, 
"and honestly I don't beheve I do. For I have 
observed that before men can be gentle and 
broad-minded with each other, they are always 
gentle and broad-minded about beasts. These 
dumb thingS; so beautiful — even the plain ones 
— ^in their different ways, and so touching in their 
dumbness, do draw us to magnanimity and help 
the wings of our hearts to grow. No; I don't 
think I exaggerate, my friend. Most surely I 
don't want to; for there is no disservice one can 
do to all these helpless things so great as to ride 
past the hounds, to fly so far in front of public 
feeling as to cause nausea, and reaction. But I 
feel — I seem to know — ^that most of us, deep down, 
really love these furred and feathered creatures 
that cannot save themselves from us — ^that are 
like our own children, because they are helpless; 
that are in a way sacred, because in them we 
watch, and through them we understand, those 
greatest blessings of the earth — Beauty and Free- 
dom. They give us so much, they ask nothing 
from us. What can we do in return but spare 
them all the suffering we can ? No, my friend, I 
do not think — whether for their sakes or our own 
— ^that I exaggerate." 

When he had said those words he turned away, 
and left me standing there. 

32 



TREATMENT OF ANIMALS 



II 



REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN 

(From the Fortnightly Review, 1915) 

I set out one morning in late August, with 
some potted-grouse sandwiches in one pocket 
and a magazine in the other, for a tramp toward 
Causdon. I had not been in that particular part 
of the moor since I used to go snipe-shooting 
there as a boy — ^my first introduction, by the 
way, to sport. It was a very lovely day, almost 
too hot; and I never saw the carpet of the moor 
more exquisite — ^heather, fern, the silvery-white 
cotton grass, dark peat turfs, and green bog- 
moss, all more than customarily clear in hue 
under a very blue sky. I walked till two o^clock, 
then sat down in a little scoop of valley by a 
thread of stream which took its rise from an 
awkward-looking bog at the top. It was wonder- 
fully quiet. A heron rose below me and flapped 
away; and while I was eating my potted grouse 
I heard the harsh cheep of a snipe, and caught 
sight of the twisting bird vanishing against the 
line of sky above the bog. "That must have 
been one of the bogs we used to shoot,'' I thought; 
and, having finished my snack of lunch, I rolled 

33 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

myself a cigarette, opened the magazine, and 
idly turned its pages. I had no serious intention 
of reading — the calm and silence were too seduc- 
tive; but my attention became riveted by an 
exciting story of some man-eating lions, and I 
read on till I had followed the adventure to the 
death of the two ferocious brutes, and found my 
cigarette actually burning my fingers. Crushing 
it out against the dampish roots of the heather, I 
lay back with my eyes fixed on the sky, thinking 
of nothing. 

Suddenly I became conscious that between me 
and that sky a leash of snipe high up were flight- 
ing and twisting, and gradually coming lower; I 
appeared indeed to have a sort of attraction for 
them. They would dash toward each other, 
seem to exchange ideas, and rush away again, 
like flies that waltz together for hours in the cen- 
tre of a room. As they came lower and lower 
over me, I could almost swear I heard them whis- 
per to each other with their long bills; and pres- 
ently I absolutely caught what they were saying: 
"Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look 
at him!" 

Amazed at such an extraordinary violation of 
all the laws of nature, I began to rub my ears, 
when I distinctly heard the ''Go back, go 
back" of an old cock grouse and, turning my 

34 



REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN 

head cautiously, saw him perched on a heath- 
ery knob within twenty yards of where I lay. 
Now, I knew very well that all efforts to intro- 
duce grouse on Dartmoor have been quite unsuc- 
cessful, since for some reason connected with the 
quality of the heather, the nature of the soil, or 
the overmild dampness of the air, this king of 
game birds most unfortunately refuses to become 
domiciled there; so that I could hardly credit 
my senses. But suddenly I heard him also: 
''Look at him ! Go back ! The ferocious brute ! 
Go back!" He seemed to be speaking to some- 
thing just below; and there, sure enough, was 
the first hare I had ever seen out on the full of 
the moor. I have always thought a hare a jolly 
beast, and not infrequently felt sorry when I 
rolled one over; it has a way of crying like a child 
if not killed outright. I confess then, that in 
hearing it, too, whisper: "Look at him! The 
ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!" I experi- 
enced the sensation that comes over one when 
one has not been quite fairly treated. Just at 
that moment, with a warm stirring of the air, 
there pitched within six yards of me a magnifi- 
cent old black-cock — ^the very spit of that splen- 
did fellow I shot last season at Balnagie, whose 
tail my wife now wears in her hat. He was ac- 
C9mpanied by four gray-hens, who, settling in a 

35 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

semicircle, began at once: "Look at him! Look 
at him ! The ferocious brute ! Oh, look at him !^' 
At that moment I say with candour that I re- 
gretted the many times I have spared gray-hens, 
with the sportsmanlike desire to encourage their 
breed. 

For several bewildered minutes after that I 
could not turn my eyes without seeing some bird 
or other alight close by me : more and more grouse, 
and black game, pheasants, partridges— not only 
the excellent English bird, but the very sporting 
Hungarian variety — and that unsatisfactory red- 
legged Frenchman which runs any distance rather 
than get up and give you a decent shot at him. 
There were woodcock, too, those twisting delights 
of the sportsman's heart, whose tiny wing-feather 
trophies have always given me a distinct sensa- 
tion of achievement when pinned in the side of 
my shooting-cap; wood-pigeons, too, very shy and 
difficult, owing to the thickness of their breast 
feathers, and, after all, only coming under the 
heading "sundry"; wild duck, with their snaky 
dark heads, that I have shot chiefly in Canada, 
lurking among rushes in twilight at flighting 
time — a delightful sport, exciting, as the darkness 
grows; excellent eating, too, with red pepper and 
sliced oranges in oil ! Certain other sundries kept 
coming also; landrails, a plump, delicious little 

36 



REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN 

bird; green and golden plover; even one of those 
queer little creatures, moor-hens, that always 
amuse one by their quick, quiet movements, 
plaintive note, and quaint curiosity, though not 
reaUy, of course, fit to shoot, with their niggling 
flight and fishy flavour! Ptarmigan, too, a bird 
I admire very much, but have only once or twice 
succeeded in bringing down, shy and scarce as 
it is in Scotland. And, side by side, the alpha 
and omega of the birds to be shot in these islands, 
a capercailzie and a quail. I well remember 
shooting the latter in a turnip field in Lincoln- 
shire — Sb scrap of a bird, the only one I ever saw in 
England. Apart from the pleasurable sensation 
at its rarity, I recollect feeling that it was almost 
a mercy to put the little thing out of its loneli- 
ness. It ate very well. There, too, was that 
loon or Northern diver that I shot with a rifle 
off Denman Island, as it swam about fifty yards 
from the shore. Handsome plumage ; I still have 
the mat it made. One bird only seemed to refuse 
to ahght, remaining up there in the sky, and 
uttering continually that trilling cry which makes 
it perhaps the most spiritual of all birds that can 
be eaten — I mean, of course, the curlew. I cer- 
tainly never shot one. They fly, as a rule, very 
high and seem to have a more than natural dis- 
trust of the human being. This curlew — ah ! and 

37 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

a blue rock (I have always despised pigeon-shoot- 
ing) — ^were the only two winged creatures one 
can shoot for sport in this country that did not 
come and sit round me-. 

There must have been, I should say, as many 
hundred altogether as I have killed in my time — 
a tremendous number. They sat in a sort of 
ring, moving their beaks from side to side, just 
as I have seen penguins doing on the films that 
explorers bring back from the Antarctic; and all 
the time repeating to each other those amazing 
words: "Look at him! The ferocious brute! 
Oh, look at him!'' 

Then, to my increased astonishment, I saw be- 
hind the circles of the birds a number of other 
animals besides the hare. At least five kinds of 
deer — ^the red, the fallow, the roe, the common 
deer, whose name IVe forgotten, which one finds 
in Vancouver Island, and the South African 
springbok, that swarm in from the Karoo at 
certain seasons, among which I had that happy 
week once in Namaqualand, shooting them from 
horseback after a gallop to cut them off — ^very 
good eating as camp fare goes, and making nice 
rugs if you sew their skins together. There, too, 
was the hyena I missed, probably not altogether; 
but he got off, to my chagrin — queer-looking 
brute ! Rabbits, of course, had come — ^hundreds 

38 



REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN 

and hundreds of them. K — ^like everybody 
else — I've done such a lot of it, I can't honestly 
say I've ever cared much for shooting rabbits, 
though the effect is neat enough when you get 
them just right, and they turn head over heels— 
and, anyway, the prolific little brutes have to be 
kept down. There, too, actually was my wild 
ostrich — ^the one I galloped so hard after, letting 
off my Winchester at half a mile, only to see him 
vanish over the horizon. Next him was the bear 
whose lair I came across at the Nanaimo Lakes. 
How I did lurk about to get that fellow! And, 
by Jove ! close to him, two cougars. I never got 
a shot at them, never even saw one of the brutes 
all the time I was camping in Vancouver Island, 
where they lie flat along the branches over your 
head, waiting to get a chance at deer, sheep, 
dog, pig, or anything handy. But they had come 
now sure enough, glaring at me with their green- 
ish cats' eyes — ^powerful-looking creatures! And 
next them sat a little meerkat — ^not much larger 
than a weasel — ^without its head ! Ah, yes ! — 
that trial shot, as we trekked out from Rous's 
farm, and I wanted to try the little new rifle I 
had borrowed. It was sitting over its hole fully 
seventy yards from the wagon, quite unconscious 
of danger. I just took aim and pulled; and there 
it was, without its head, fallen across its hole. 

39 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

I remember well how pleased our 'boys' were. 
And I, too ! Not a bad little rifle, that ! 

Outside the ring of beasts I could see foxes 
moving, not mixing with the stationary creatures, 
as if afraid of suggesting that I had shot them, 
instead of being present at their deaths in the 
proper fashion. One, quite a cub, kept limping 
round on three legs — ^the one, no doubt, whose 
pad was given me, out cubbing, as a boy. I put 
that wretched pad in my hat-box, and forgot it, 
so that I was compelled to throw the whole stink- 
ing show away. There were quite a lot of grown 
foxes; it certainly showed delicacy on their part, 
not sitting down with the others. There was 
really a tremendous crowd of creatures alto- 
gether by this time ! I should think every beast 
and bird I ever shot or even had a chance of kill- 
ing must have been there, and all whispering: 
''Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look 
at him!" 

Animal-lover, as every true sportsman is, those 
words hurt me. If there is one thing on which 
we sportsmen pride ourselves, and legitimately, 
it is a humane feeling toward all furred and 
feathered creatures — and, as every one knows, we 
are foremost in all efforts to diminish their un- 
necessary sufferings. 

The corroboree about me which they were ob- 
40 



REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN 

viously holding became, as I grew used to their 
manner of talking, increasingly audible. But it 
was the quail's words that I first distinguished. 

"He certainly ate me," he said; "said I was 
good, too!" 

"I do not believe" — ^this was the first hare 
speaking — "that he shot me for that reason; he 
did shoot me, and I was jugged, but he wouldn't 
touch me. And the same day he shot eleven 
brace of partridges, didn't he?" Twenty-two 
partridges assented. "And he only ate two of 
you, all told — that proves he didn't want us for 
food." 

The hare's words had given me relief, for I 
somehow dislike intensely the gluttonous notion 
conveyed by the quail that I shot merely in order 
to devour the result. Any one with the faintest 
instincts of a sportsman will bear me out in this. 

When the hare had spoken there was a mur- 
mur all round. I could not at first make out its 
significance, till I heard one of the cougars say: 
"We kill only when we want to eat;" and the 
bear, who, I noticed, was a lady, added: "No 
bear kills anything she cannot devour;" and, 
quite clear, I caught the quacking words of a 
wild duck: "We eat every worm we catch, and 
we'd eat more if we could get them." Then again 
from the whole throng came that shivering whis- 

41 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

per: "Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, 
look at him ! " 

In spite of their numbers, they seemed afraid 
of me, seemed actually to hold me in a kind of 
horror — ^me, an animal-lover, and without a gun ! 
I felt it bitterly. "How is it," I thought, "that 
not one of them seems to have an inkling of what 
it means to be a sportsman, not one of them 
seems to comprehend the instinct which makes 
one love sport just for the — er — danger of it?" 
The hare spoke again: 

"Foxes," it murmured, "kill for the love of 
killing. Man is a kind of fox." A violent dissent 
at once rose from the foxes, till one of thehi, who 
seemed the eldest, said: "We certainly kill as 
much as we can, but we should always carry it 
all off and eat it, if man gave us time — the fero- 
cious brutes ! " You cannot expect much of foxes, 
but it struck me as especially foxy that he should 
put the wanton character of his destructiveness 
off on man, especially when he must have known 
how carefully we preserve the fox, in the best in- 
terests of sport. A pheasant ejaculated shrilly: 
"He killed sixty of us one day to his own gun, 
and went off that same evening without eating 
even a wing!" And again came that shivering 
whisper: "Look at him! The ferocious brute! 
Oh, look at him!" It was too absurd! As if 

42 



REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN 

they could not realise that a sportsman shoots 
almost entirely for the mouths of others. But 
I checked myself remembering that altruism is a 
purely human attribute. "They get a big price 
for us!" said a woodcock, "especially if they 
shoot us early. I fetched several shillings.'' 
Really, the ignorance of these birds ! As if mod- 
ern sportsmen knew anything of what happens 
after a day's shooting! All that is left to the 
butler and the keeper. Beaters, of course, and 
cartridges must be paid for, to say nothing of the 
sin of waste. "I would not think them so much 
worse than foxes," said a rabbit, "if they didn't 
often hurt you, so that you take hours dying. I 
was seven hours dying in great agony, and one of 
my brothers was twelve. Weren't you, brother?" 
A second rabbit nodded. "But perhaps that's 
better than trapping," he said. "Remember 
mother!" "Ah!" a partridge muttered, "foxes 
at all events do bite your head off clean. But 
men often break your wing, or your leg, and 
leave you!" And again that shivering whisper 
rose: "Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, 
look at him!" 

By this time the whole thing was getting so on 
my nerves that if I could have risen I should 
have rushed at them, but a weight as of lead 
seemed to bind me to the ground, and all I could 

43 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

do was to thank God that they did not seem to 
know of my condition; for, though there were no 
man-eaters among them, I could not tell what they 
might do if they realised that I was helpless — 
the sentiments of chivalry and generosity being 
confined to man, as we all know. 

"Yes," said the capercailzie slowly, "I am a 
shy bird, and was often shot at before this one 
got me; and though I'm strong, my size is so 
against me that I always took a pellet or two 
away with me; and what can you do then? 
Those ferocious brutes take the shot out of their 
faces and hands when they shoot each other by 
mistake — IVe seen 'em; but we have no chance 
to do that." A snipe said shrilly: "What I ob- 
ject to is that he doesn't eat us till he's had too 
much already. I come in on toast at the fifth 
course; it hurts one's feelings." 

"Ferocious brute, killing everything he sees." 
I felt my blood fairly boil, and longed to cry 
out: "You beasts ! You know that we don't kill 
everything we see! We leave that to cockneys, 
and foreigners.'^ But just as I had no power of 
movement, so I seemed to have no power of speech. 
And suddenly a little voice, high up over me, 
piped down: "They never shoot us larks." I 
have always loved the lark; how grateful I felt 
to that little creature — till it added: "They do 

44 



REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN 

worse; they take and shut us up in little traps of 
wire till we pine away ! Ferocious brutes ! " In 
all my life I think I never was more disappointed ! 
The second cougar spoke: "He once passed within 
spring of me. What do you say, friends; shall 
we go for him?" The shivering answer came 
from aU: "Go for him! Ferocious brute! Oh, 
go for him !" And I heard the sound of hundreds 
of soft wings and pads ruffling and shuffling. 
And, knowing that I had no power to move an 
inch, I shut my eyes. Lying there motionless, 
as a beetle that shams dead, I felt them creeping, 
creeping, tiU all round me and over me was the 
sound of nostrils sniffing; and every second I ex- 
pected to feel' the nip of teeth and beaks in the 
fleshy parts of me. But nothing came, and with 
an effort I reopened my eyes. There they were, 
hideously close, with an expression on their faces 
that I could not read; a sort of wry look, every 
nose and beak turned a little to one side. And 
suddenly I heard the old fox saying: "It's im- 
possible, with a smeU like that; we could never 
eat him !'' From every one of them came a sort 
of sniff or sneeze as of disgust, and as they began 
to back away I distinctly heard the hyena mut- 
ter: "He's not wholesome — not wholesome — the 
ferocious brute!" 

The relief of that moment was swamped by my 
45 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

natural indignation that these impudent birds 
and beasts should presume to think that I, a 
British sportsman, would not be good to eat. 
Then that beastly hyena added: "If we killed 
him, you know, and buried him for a few days, 
he might be tolerable." 

An old cock grouse called out at once: "Go 
back ! Let us hang him ! We are always well 
hung. They like us a little decayed — ^ferocious 
brutes ! Go back !" And once more, I felt, from 
the stir and shuffle, that my fate hung in the bal- 
ance; and I shut my eyes again, lest they might 
be tempted to begin on them. Then, to my in- 
finite relief, I heard the cougar — ^have we not al- 
ways been told that they were the friends of 
man? — ^mutter: "Pah! It's clear we could never 
eat him fresh, and what we do not eat at once, 
we do not touch!'' 

All the birds cried out in chorus: "No! That 
would be crow's work." And again I felt that I 
was saved. Then, to my horror, that infernal 
loon shrieked: "Kill him and have him stuffed — 
specimen of Ferocious Brute ! Or fix his skin on 
a tree, and look at it — as he did with me !" 

For a full minute I could feel the currents of 
opinion swaying over me, at this infamous pro- 
posal; then the old black-cock, the one whose 
tail is in my wife's hat, said sharply: "Specimen ! 

46 



REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN 

He's not good enough!'^ And, once more, for 
all my indignation at that gratuitous insult, I 
breathed freely. 

"Come!" said the lady bear quietly. "Let us 
dribble on him a little, and go. The ferocious 
brute is not worth more!" And, during what 
seemed to me an eternity, one by one they came 
up, deposited on me a little saliva, looking into 
my eyes the while with a sort of horror and con- 
tempt, then vanished on the moor. The last to 
come up was the little meerkat without its head. 
It stood there; it could neither look at me nor 
drop saliva, but somehow it contrived to say: 
"I forgive you, ferocious brute, but I was very 
happy!" Then it, too, withdrew. And from aU 
around, out of invisible presences in the air and 
the heather, came once more the shivering whis- 
per: "Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, 
look at him !" 

I sat up. There was a trilling sound in my 
ears. Above me in the blue a curlew was passing, 
uttering its cry. Ah! Thank heaven! I had 
been asleep ! My day-dream had been caused by 
the potted grouse, and the pressure of the Review, 
which had lain, face downward, on my chest, 
open at the page where I had been reading about 
the man-eating lions and the death of those 
ferocious brutes. It shows what tricks of dis- 

47 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

proportion little things will play with the mind 
when it is not under reasonable control. 

And, to get the unwholesome taste of it all out 
of my mouth, I at once jumped up and started for 
home at a round pace. 



Ill 

THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR 
FOOD 

(Papers in the Daily Mail, 1912)* 

The thing is horrible, but it is necessary. 
Why, then, drag it out into the light? Why 
make our thoughts miserable with contemplation 
of horrors which must exist? 

If it were true that the present methods of 
slaughtering animals for food in this country 
were necessary, if all the suffering they involve 
were inevitable, I should be the first to say: "Let 
us shut our eyes! For needless suffering — even 
to ourselves — is stupid.'' It is just because this 
particular suffering is avoidable, and easily avoid- 
able, that one feels we must face the matter if we 
want to call ourselves a decent people. 

I am a meat-eater — ^we are nearly all meat- 

* Things have moved a little, I believe, but not nearly enough. 
— J.G. 

48 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

eaters. Well! We cannot sit down at present 
to a single meal without complicity in methods 
that produce a large amount of preventable suf- 
fering to creatures for whom the least sensitive 
among us has at heart a certain friendly feeling. 
For, to those who say that they do not care for 
animals, or that animals, even domestic ones, have 
no rights except such as for our own advantage 
we accord them, let me at once reply: I do not 
agree, but, for the sake of argument, granted; and 
then conceive, if you can, a world without cattle, 
sheep, and pigs, and tell me honestly whether you 
do not miss something friendly. No ! the fact 
is, we, who are the descendants of countless gen- 
erations to whom these animals have been liter- 
ally the breath of life, cannot — even now that we 
have become such highly civilised townsmen — 
disclaim all sensibility in their regard. 

Consider the magnitude of this matter. The 
calculations of an expert give the following ap- 
proximate numbers of animals annually killed for 
food in England and Wales: 1,850,000 beasts, 
8,500,000 sheep, and 3,200,000 pigs. These fig- 
ures are hard to come at, and may be a million 
or so out, one way or the other, but even if they 
be, is there any feature of the national life which 
can touch this for possibilities of preventable 
physical suffering? And is there any depart- 

49 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

ment so neglected by public opinion and the 
law? 

Save the eating of bread, have we any practice 
in our lives so consistent as that of eating meat, 
or any from which we, perhaps wrongly, consider 
that we derive more benefit, or any about whose 
conditions, sanitary or humane, we are so care- 
less? 

If a donkey is beaten to death, a dog stoned, or 
a cat killed with a riding-whip, the chances are 
that a prosecution will ensue or a question be 
asked in Parliament; for public opinion and the 
law lay it down that the infliction of unnecessary 
suffering on animals is cruelty, an offence pmiish- 
able by fine or imprisonment. But if in slaughter- 
houses some 8,000,000 sheep are killed yearly 
without first being stunned, by a method which, 
even in the hands of an expert, produces some 
seconds of acute suffering (Report of the Admi- 
ralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering of Ani- 
mals, 1904); if thousands of cattle require two 
or more blows of that primitive instrument, the 
poleaxe (if even only one in a hundred cattle re- 
quires a second blow it means 18,000 in a year) ; 
if pigs are driven in gangs into a small space and 
there killed, one by one, with the others squeal- 
ing in terror round their dead bodies; if aU this 
preventable suffering is inflicted daily in our 

50 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

slaughter-houses, what does public opinion know 
of it, and what does the law care ? 

There was a time in this country when men beat 
their donkeys, set cocks fighting, baited bears and 
badgers, tied tin pots to dogs' tails, with the light- 
est of light hearts and no consciousness at all that 
they were outside the pale of decency in doing so. 
We, their descendants, now look on the unnecessary 
suffering involved in such doings with aversion, 
but we still allow our sheep and pigs to be killed 
without stunning, our pigs to be driven in gangs 
into the slaughtering-chamber, and the uncertain 
poleaxe to be used for cattle — all without a qualm. 

Why should this enormous field, wherein does 
occur such an amount of easily preventable suffer- 
ing, be left so unpatroUed by the law, which has 
interested itself in warding off all needless suf- 
fering from cats and dogs and horses? Well! 
The law stands idle partly because the animals 
we kill for food are not so near and dear to us as 
those others. We should never stand the horses 
and dogs and cats we make such pets of being 
killed when their time comes in the manner in 
which we kill our sheep and pigs. And partly 
the law stands idle because in the case of horses 
and dogs and cats there is no large leagued inter- 
est, such as that of the meat trades, unconvinced 
of the need for improvement. 

51 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

I am told that the meat trades constitute the 
strongest body in the kingdom. And well they 
may, considering the vast proportions of their 
business. The meat trades are controlled by men 
like ourselves; as humane, and imdesirous of in- 
flicting unnecessary suffering; surely they will 
reconsider their convictions and accept such sim- 
ple, elementary safeguards against unnecessary 
suffering as were outlined by the Admiralty Com- 
mittee on Himiane Slaughtering, of 1904. There 
is nothing really prejudicial to their interest 
in these suggestions. Nothing extravagant, or 
experimental. The case has been proved up to 
the hilt. What is the good of appointing a Gov- 
ernmental Committee of first-rate men* to ex- 
amine into facts if their Report is to be paid about 
as much attention to as one would pay to the sug- 
gestions of seven lunatics? Why set going a 
laborious inquiry, for negligible or puny results? 
It can no longer be pretended that humane 
killers are not effective, in the face of so much 
evidence from abroad; in the face of numerous 
testimonials from butchers in this country; in the 
face of the fact that Mr. Christopher Cash (for 
whose consistent advocacy of humane slaughter- 
ing the thanks of us all are due) in the year 1910 

* The Admiralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering, 1904. 
Chairman, Mr. Arthur Lee, M. P. 

52 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

had 4,000 animals, the property of thirty butchers, 
killed by ^humane' methods, and though he was 
in every case willing to pay full compensation 
for any injury he might do to a carcass, had not 
one single claim made on him. (From a pam- 
phlet entitled, "The Humane Slaughtering of Ani- 
mals for Food,'' by Christopher Cash. Issued by 
the R. S. P. C. A.) 

Butchers and slaughtermen perform a neces- 
sary task from which most of us would shrink, 
and it is both imbecoming and nonsensical to 
suggest intentional cruelty on their part. / do 
not for a moment. But I do say that it is the 
business of the law so to control the methods of 
slaughter as to obviate, to the utmost, all need- 
less suffering, however unintentionally it may be 
inflicted. 

In the following brief summary of our want of 
system, I am not dealing at all with the Jewish 
method of killing, for, not being a Jew, I cannot 
pretend to be qualified to discuss a custom which 
appears to have been necessary hitherto to the 
peace of the Jewish mind. I only urge a people in 
some respects more humane than ourselves, to 
search their consciences, and see if they can still 
endure this method. Neither am I speaking as 
to Scotland, which is ahead of us, having pro- 
vided by the Burgh PoHce Act of 1892 that where 

53 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

there are public there shall be no private slaugh- 
ter-houses; and where — at all events in Edin- 
burgh — ^they have abattoirs that compare, I am 
told; with the best on the Continent. 

The following is a rough outline of what at 
present seems good to a nation which prides it- 
self on being at once the most practical and the 
most humane in the whole world: 

A mixed system of private and public slaughter- 
houses — ^thousands of private slaughter-houses 
(some of them highly unsanitary) alongside of a 
few municipally controlled abattoirs. 

No regulation that where there are public 
abattoirs there shall be no private ones; hence 
great difficulty in making these public slaughter- 
houses pay their way. 

Inspection of private slaughter-houses, in spite 
of aU the good intentions of local authorities and 
medical oflBicerS; admitted to be very inefficient in 
so far as condition of. meat and method of 
slaughter are concerned. 

Supervision of public slaughter-houses much 
hampered by the present wide-spread custom of 
allowing butchers to send in their beasts with 
their own slaughtermen. 

No general statutory regulations as to method of 
slaughter. Model by-laws have been drawn up 
by the Local Government Board and recom- 

54 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

mended to local authorities — but they are not 
compulsory and have been but sparsely adopted. 

Slaughtermen not licensed; nor — except in 
slaughter-houses directly controlled by a govern- 
ment department (such as the Admiralty) — re- 
quired by law to be proficient before they com- 
mence slaughtering. 

These are the methods of slaughter we adopt at 
present : 

Cattle are almost universally stunned before 
their throats are cut. So far — ^good! But they 
are still, for the most part, stunned with the pole- 
axe. This weapon produces complete uncon- 
sciousness at the first blow, if well melded. If 
not well wielded — .' I have been assured that the 
cases of misfire amount to a very small percent- 
age. But on the first two beasts slaughtered be- 
fore my eyes the first blow of the poleaxe — wielded 
in each case by an experienced slaughterman — de- 
scended without effect. The animals moaned, and 
waited perhaps a minute for the second and suc- 
cessful blow. Thanks to the efforts of the Royal 
Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the 
Council of Justice to Animals, the Humanitarian 
League, of Mr. Christopher Cash, and others, 
there are now a considerable number of improved 
instruments for stunning cattle in use — ^the 
Greener and Behr pistols; the Royal Society for 

55 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

Prevention of Cruelty to Animals humane killer, 
and large captive-bolt pistol; the Swedish cattle- 
killer (used throughout Scandinavia), and others. 
But the number of these improved instruments 
in use at present is only a fringe to the mass of 
time-hallowed and uncertain poleaxes. 

Calves: "The usual practice in this country 
appears to be to run the animal up first (by a 
tackle fastened to its hind legs) and then to 
stun it, previous to bleeding." (Report of the 
Admiralty Committee.) On this method the 
Committee thus commented: "This order of pro- 
cedure is not so humane, and appears to be im- 
necessary. . . . Calves should first be stunned 
by a blow on the head with a club'' — ^. e., before 
being run up. When this Committee conducted its 
investigation, in 1904, the best instruments for 
stunning had not been invented. 

Sheep, with few exceptions, are not stunned 
before they are bled. The method of killing them 
and the amount of suffering they undergo are 
thus summed up in the report of the Admiralty 
Committee : " The usual method in this country is 
to lay the sheep on a wooden ^crutch' and then 
to thrust a knife through the neck below the ears, 
and with a second motion to insert the point 
from within, between the joints of the vertebrae, 
thus severing the spinal cord. In the hands of an 

56 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

expert this method is fairly rapid but somewhat 
uncertain, the time which elapses between the first 
thrust of the knife and complete loss of sensibility 
varying, according to Professor Starling^s observa- 
tions, from five to thirty seconds. In the hands of an 
inexpert operator it may be some time before death 
supervenes, and there can be little doubt that this 
method must be very painful to the sheep as long as 
consciousness remains. 

"At the best it is a somewhat difficult opera- 
tion, and yet in practice is often intrusted to the 
younger and less experienced hands in the slaugh- 
ter-house, the probable reason being that sheep 
are easy to handle, and do not struggle or give 
trouble when stuck. ..." In other words, the 
more helpless the creature the less need for 
humanity! "In Denmark and many parts of 
Germany and Switzerland the law requires that 
sheep shall always be stunned previous to being 
stuck, and the Committee have satisfied them- 
selves, by practical experiments and observation 
that this can be done expeditiously and without 
difficulty. A small club with a heavy head should 
be used, and the sheep should be struck on the 
top of the head between the ears. This point is 
important, as it is almost impossible to stun a 
sheep by striking it on the forehead. ... It was 
also clearly demonstrated that the stunning 

57 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

caused no injury to the sheep's head or to the 
'scrag of mutton' which could in any way de- 
preciate their market value/' 

Notwithstanding this recommendation, the 
Local Government Board had (up to 1915) 
omitted from their model by-laws (which, as be- 
fore said, are not obligatory) a regulation requir- 
ing the stimning of sheep. In 1915, however, 
they added the following alternative clause: 
9(B) 'A person shall not in a slaughter-house pro- 
ceed to slaughter any animal until the same shall 
have been effectually stunned with a mechanically 
operated instrument suitable and sufficient for 
the purpose.' 

And in their memorandum they say: ^At the 
present time the Board understand that a "hu- 
mane kiUer" can be got which is adapted for 
stuiming any kind of animal^ reasonable in cost, 
and effective and simple in operation. It appears, 
too, that the use of the improved instrument can 
readily be learnt, so that no prolonged training is 
needed for its proper manipulation.' 

One can only hope that every Local Authority 
will now adopt this clause and insist on the stun- 
ning of sheep as well as of all other animals. 

Pigs: "The Committee ascertained that it is 
the usual practice in large establishments in Eng- 
land to stun pigs by a blow on the forehead previ- 

58 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

ous to sticking them, and there is no difficulty in 
carrying this out, as the pig^s head is soft as 
compared with that of the sheep. The Commit- 
tee are of opinion that the prehminary stunning 
should be enforced in all cases, the evidence tend- 
ing to show that this operation is often limited 
to pigs which are so large or strong as to give 
trouble, or to cases where, owing to the location 
of the slaughter-house, the squeals of the stuck 
pigs cause annoyance to the neighbourhood. 
The Committee feel that considerations of h/umunity 
are at least as important as those above mentioned^' 
— a sentiment with which most of us will presum- 
ably agree. Note, however, that the Admiralty 
Committee refer above only to large establish- 
ments. Pigs still appear to be killed in ways that 
the following quotation describes: "I, with an- 
other witness, saw five pigs killed — ^three small 
ones and two large ones. The pigs were 'knifed' 
one at a time and allowed to wander round the 
slaughter-house bleeding and in a drunken, reel- 
ing, rolling state, and at the same time uttering 
most plaintive cries." (From a letter to a daily 
journal.) 

And Mr. R. 0. P. Paddison (one of the foremost 
workers in the cause of Hinnane Slaughtering) 
thus describes the method adopted in most of our 
bacon factories. "First the animals are hung up 

59 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

alive head downward by a chain fastened to a 
hind foot, and then they are stuck and bleed to 
death. The work is done quickly in a collective 
sense — at the rate possibly of 100 to 200 pigs an 
hour, but each individual pig suffers from forty 
seconds to two or three minutes, and several pigs 
struggle and shriek at the same time/' 

I have not personally witnessed either of the 
methods so described. 

I understand that some bacon-curers consider 
or did consider stunning cruel, on the ground that 
several blows were often required. The use of 
^humane killers' disposes of this objection. 

The late eminent physiologist. Sir Benjamin 
Ward Richardson, in a paper read before the 
Medical Society of London some years ago, says: 
" Pigs, I have said, suffer a mental terror of death, 
and to them conmionly is also given a severe 
degree of physical pain. . . . When they are 
killed by the knife alone they die by a haemorrhage 
that may extend with persistent consciousness 
over three or four minutes of time." 

In relation to the pig's mental horror of death, 
I myseK saw the following sight: Fifteen or so 
pigs in a slaughtering-chamber just large enough 
to hold them and the slaughterer. Of these pigs 
three or four had already been stimned and 
knifed and lay dead and bleeding among their 

60 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

living brethren, who with manifest terror were 
squeaKng and straining here and there against 
the walls, while the slaughterer moved about 
among them selecting the next victim. A blow, 
a cut, and there was another dead pig; and this 
would go on, no doubt, till the whole fifteen 
were despatched and their bodies shot down 
the slide. Terror of death! Yes! At all this, 
by the way, a boy of about thirteen was look- 
ing on — and this in a public slaughter-house 
with a good superintendent and under municipal 
control. 

Segregation of animals about to be slaughtered 
from slaughtering operations: "It appears to be 
the common practice, even in modern and well- 
regulated slaughter-houses, to keep the animals 
which are immediately awaiting slaughter in pens 
which are mere annexes to the slaughter-chamber 
itself, and in many cases in full view of all that 
goes on inside. . . . There is no point which the 
Committee have more carefully investigated than 
the question as to whether animals do or do not 
suffer from fear from this contact, and the evi- 
dence of those best qualified to judge is so con- 
flicting that no absolute verdict can be given. 
. . . The animal should be given the full benefit 
of the doubt. '* (Report of the Admiralty Com- 
mittee.) 

61 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

But the animal is not given the benefit of the 
doubt. Whatever the degree of consciousness of 
animals awaiting slaughter (sometimes for a whole 
hour) just divided by a door which, all regula- 
tions to the contrary, is far from always shut, 
whether they know or not that it is death which 
awaits them, any spectator accustomed to animals 
in their normal state has only to look at their 
eyes, as they stand waiting, to feel sure that they 
are in fear of something. 

Such, then, in brief and in rough, are the con- 
ditions and methods of slaughter which still 
seem good to us. When the Admiralty Committee 
issued their report in 1904 they made the follow- 
ing recommendations: 

(a) All animals (cattle, calves, sheep, lambs, 
and pigs) without exception must be stunned or 
otherwise rendered unconscious before blood is 
drawn. 

(5) Animals awaiting slaughter must be so 
placed that they cannot see into the slaughter- 
house, and the doors of the latter must be kept 
closed while slaughtering is going on. 

(c) The drainage of the slaughter-house must 
be so arranged that no blood or other refuse can 
flow out within the sight or smell* of animals 

* I believe it is the smell of blood rather than the sight which 
affects animals. — J. G. 

62 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

awaiting slaughter, and no such refuse shall be 
deposited in proximity to the waiting-pens. 

(d) If more animals than one are being slaugh- 
tered in one slaughter-house at one time they 
must not be in view of each other. 

(e) None but licensed men shall be employed 
in or about slaughter-houses. 

What has been done to carry out these recom- 
mendations, the fruit of most thorough and labori- 
ous investigations carried out at a considerable 
expenditure of public money, and presxmiably 
with some object, by men well qualified for their 
task? 

Just this much has been done: the recommenda- 
tions have been adopted and are worked success- 
fully by the Admiralty themselves, and they form 
the basis of certain clauses in the Local Govern- 
ments' Voluntary Model By-Laws, to which at- 
tention is only just beginning to be paid. 

Seeing that the condition of affairs is such as 
I have detailed; seeing that the Admiralty Com- 
mittee made the following wise remarks: "How- 
ever humane and scientific in theory may be the 
methods of slaughter, it is inevitable that abuses 
and cruelty may result in practice, unless there is 
a proper system of official inspection"; and, "In 
the interests not only of humanity, but of sanita- 
tion, order, and ultimate economy, it is highly 

63 



' MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

desirable that, where circumstances permit, pri- 
vate slaughter-houses should be replaced by 
public abattoirs, and that no killing should be 
permitted except in the latter, under official super- 
vision"; seeing the enormous dimensions of this 
matter, and that our methods are behind those of 
nearly every Continental country and very much 
behind those of Denmark, Switzerland, and Ger- 
many, it would occur to the simple mind that here 
was eminently a case for broad and sweeping 
action on the part of the legislature. 

I have not even thought it worth while to dwell 
on the unsanitary aspect of the present system, 
because the Royal Commission on Food from 
Tuberculous Animals (again at a considerable ex- 
penditure of public money) reported thus: "The 
actual amount of tuberculous disease among cer- 
tain classes of food animals is so large as to af- 
ford to man frequent occasions for contracting 
tuberculous disease through his food. We think 
it probable that an appreciable part of the tuber- 
culosis that affects man is obtained through his 
food"; — ^practically without effect ! If the public 
likes to spend its money on ascertaining a risk to 
itself and likes to disregard that risk to itself 
when ascertained, far be it from me to gainsay 
the public. But if any one be interested in the 
sanitary side of our want of system, let him go to 

64 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

the superintendent of some large public slaughter- 
house and ask what percentage of meat is con- 
demned daily; then let him ask some medical 
officer of health how far it is possible to inspect 
the condition of carcasses in 'private slaughter- 
houses — and then let him go home and think! 
There I leave the matter. For, frankly, it is not 
this, but the disregard by the public of needless 
suffering inflicted on helpless creatures, bred and 
killed for its own advantage, that moves me. 
Surely no one can call the following suggestions 
unreasonable : 

(1) No animal to he hied hefore heing stunned {or 
otherwise rendered instantaneously insensihle). 

(2) No animal to he slaughtered in sight of an- 
other animal. 

(3) No slaughter refuse and hlood to he allowed 
within sight or smell of an animal awaiting slaughter, 

(4) No stunning or slaughtering implement to he 
used that has not heen approved hy the Local Govern- 
ment Board. 

(5) The license of no slaughter-house to he re- 
newed unless it possesses these approved stunning and 
slaughtering implements, a copy of official instruc- 
tions how to use them, and can prove that it does use 
them and them alone. 

(6) All offenders against these regulations to he 
liable to penalties on summary conviction, 

65 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

Why has not this simple harmless minimum 
of decent humanity been — as in other countries 
— ^long ago adopted? For the usual reasons: 
Dislike of change; dislike of a Httle extra trouble 
and a little extra expense; liberty of the sub- 
ject. To take the last point first. Dictate to 
a man how he shall slaughter his own animals — 
what next! Well! I am all for liberty of the 
subject. I am for letting him hurt himself as 
much as ever he likes. I even go so far as to say 
that prosecutions for attempted suicide are wrong 
and ridiculous; but where the subject claims to 
hurt the helpless with impunity, then, it seems to 
me, time to hurt the subject. 

I fancy that in most men's minds there lurks 
the feeling: "Oh! a little extra suffering to 
animals who are going to die anyway in a minute 
or two — ^what does it matter? Now, if you were 
to put it on the ground that it hurts the slaugh- 
terer there'd be something in it !" Yes ! It cer- 
tainly may hurt the morale of the slaughterer — 
but not much, for he inflicts the needless suffer- 
ing without consciousness of cruelty; and ill actions 
of which one is not conscious only negatively de- 
teriorate morale, in so far as they are a waste of 
time in which good actions might have been per- 
formed. But to say that it does not matter 
whether we needlessly hurt the sheep or pig be- 

66 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

cause they are going to die anyway is really to 
say that no suffering matters, however unneces- 
sary, since we must all die and it will be all the 
same a hundred years hence. It is at all events 
not a saying that I can imagine coming out of the 
mouth of a human being in perfect health and 
the possession of all his faculties, with a knife 
going in just behind his right ear and wiggling 
about in his neck and head till it finds his spinal- 
cord between the joints of his vertebrae. And 
though you may think that the infliction of some 
seconds of excruciating torture on an animal does 
not really hurt the animal because she cannot 
tell you that it does — it conceivably might hurt 
you a little to feel it was needlessly inflicted. 

The meat trades and butchers generally deny 
the need for change and claim that the human- 
ity of existing methods cannot be improved on. 
I really cannot understand this. Take for ex- 
ample two conversations I had with quite hu- 
mane butchers: 

/; " So you never stun your sheep before bleed- 
ing them?" 

First Butcher: "Oh, no." 

"Why not?" 

"It isn't necessary." 

"Not to avoid pain?" 

"Oh, no; there's no pain." 
67 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

Ten minutes later: 

/; "You always stun your cattle before bleed- 
ing them?" 

Same Butcher: "Oh! yes, always/' 

"^^%?" 

"Oh ! it avoids a lot of pain." 

To the second butcher: 

/; "Then you never stun your sheep before 
bleeding them." 

Second Butcher: "No, never." 

"Why not? Is there any objection?" 

"No, I don't see any objection; only it's never 
done. IVe never seen a sheep stunned." 

"Just custom?" 

"Yes, just that." 

The old, ignorant prejudice that animals do 
not bleed freely if stunned first is now, I think, 
never advanced. 

So much for custom, and dislike of change. 

But now we come to what is perhaps the real 
gravamen of the resistance — a little extra trouble, 
a suspicion of extra expense. This touches all 
the points in the irreducible minimum of reform. 
For instance, the various R. S. P. C. A. humane 
killers cost about thirty-five shillings; the Swedish 
cattle-killer ten shillings and sixpence, with car- 
tridges four shillings per hundred; you must spend 
perhaps an hour in learning how to use them, and 

68 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

five minutes or so per day in cleaning them. They 
are still new things, ^^ fads'' — although they have 
passed all tests, been proved by dozens of testi- 
monials from butchers in this country to be per- 
fectly efficient, and the Swedish cattle-killer is 
used throughout several countries. 

Again, it is convenient not to have to be care- 
ful to shut doors between slaughtering-chambers 
and animals awaiting slaughter, or to have to 
pave your floors so that blood runs well away 
from the waiting-pens. It is handy (especially in 
ill-constructed slaughter-houses) to kill animals in 
sight of each other. It is always, in fact, a nui- 
sance to make any change that involves readjust- 
ment. And, unfortunately, animals have no 
force behind them, are not represented on the 
public bodies of the coimtry; cannot lobby in 
the House of Commons, withdraw votes, or com- 
mit outrages; cannot instruct counsel; have no 
rights save those which mere chivalry shall give 
them. * Besides,' says Defence, ^everything is 
already done as well as it can be done. Switzer- 
land, Denmark — ^who knows whether they are 
really better? The ways of our own country 
are good enough for us — ^the good old-fashioned 
methods — if there were any real need for reform 
we should be the first to undertake it 1 ' Waste 
paper, then, the Admiralty report ! Waste paper ! 

69 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

I have reckoned that in the case of sheep alone 
the amount of needless suffering inflicted must 
amount to some 33,000 hours of solid, uninter- 
rupted death agony each year — (number of sheep 
slaughtered without stunning, 8,000,000; period 
of suffering, five to thirty seconds — ^Admiralty 
Committee's report) — all preventable by a few 
strokes of the legislative pen. Pleasant reflec- 
tions for those of us who eat mutton! But the 
truth is, we don't reflect; or if by any chance we 
do, we pass on with the thought : ^ Nothing can be 
done till the butchers themselves are convinced!' 
Is that true ? 

Just this far true: As in every other case of 
new law, there would be required at first a little 
special activity. It is only a question of starting 
a new standard. In two years' time, if these sim- 
ple, harmless regulations concerning the slaugh- 
ter of animals for food were enforced — not merely 
recommended, as now — ^there would hardly be an 
animal in this country bled without first being 
stunned by humane methods, or any beasts watch- 
ing their fellows being killed. 

I attack no one in this matter; I blame no one, 
for I am not in a position to — the charge of cal- 
lousness falls heavily on my own shoulders, who 
have eaten meat all these years without ever 
troubling as to what went before it. Nor can I 

70 



SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD 

hope that these words will do more than ruffle 
the nerves of the public; but I do trust that such 
of our legislators as may chance to read them 
may be moved to feel that it is their part, as gen- 
tle men, to save patient creatures, who cannot 
plead in their own behalf, from all suffering that 
the satisfaction of our wants does not compel us 
to inflict on them. 

If what I have written has seemed extravagant, 
he who reads has only to go and see for himself. 
And let those who would attack this plea, train 
their guns on the Report of the Admiralty Com- 
mittee, 1904. For I have but conveniently sum- 
marised the unanimous verdict of able and disin- 
terested men, who, officially appointed to examine 
the whole matter, held many sittings, heard many 
witnesses, saw with their own eyes, and made 
their own experimental investigations. I have, 
in fact, done nothing but give an added public- 
ity to the deliberate conclusions of an impartial 
tribunal, which had an unique opportunity of 
forming and delivering a comprehensive, dispas- 
sionate judgment, and delivered it — ^to what end ? 



71 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

IV 

ON PERFORMING ANIMALS ' 
(1) 

(A Letter to the Daily Express, 1913) 

Writing from the standpoint of one whose love 
of animals at one time caused him to enjoy the 
spectacle of them performing tricks and capers, 
into the educational history of which he never 
thought of going, I beheve I well understand the 
attraction of "the animal show'^ in music-halls 
or circuses. Nor do I doubt that there are ani- 
mal trainers with such a natural gift and love of 
beasts, that the process of training becomes al- 
most pleasurable to creatures who are not by na- 
ture intended to ape mankind. 

I even believe that there may be animals, es- 
pecially among dogs, who grow to appreciate the 
glamour of the footlights and the sense of their 
own importance. But when all this is said, I 
have come to abominate the thought of the whole 
thing, and I fancy that any one who takes the 
trouble to think the matter out, any one who does 
not allow his natural delight in animals to run 
away with his sense of proportion and the fitness 
of things, must come to the same conclusion. 

72 



PERFORMING ANIMALS 

To simply bring a horsG; a dog, a cat, or even 
an elephant or camel on the stage as part of the 
atmosphere or machinery of a play, treating it 
with the kindness that is invariable I believe in 
such cases, is one thing, and I by no means object 
to it. But the deliberate training and use, for 
the purpose of making a Hving out of them, of 
numbers of animals, taking them from place to 
place, hall to hall, suitable or unsuitable, is a very- 
different ^proposition/ as Americans would say. 

The very nature of it invites suffering. And I 
do not well see how any amoimt of inspection and 
the granting of licenses is going to do away with 
the greater part of a wretchedness that comes 
from forcing creatures away from more or less 
natural to highly unnatural conditions of life; nor 
can I see how, for the purpose of granting licenses, 
satisfactory evidence is ever going to be obtained 
that training (which is and must be quite a pri- 
vate affair between trainer and animal) is not ac- 
companied by cruelty. 

In a word, I would like to see the "animal 
show" abolished in this country. It is too ironi- 
cal altogether that our love of beasts should 
make us tolerate and even enjoy what our com- 
mon sense, when we let it loose, tells us must in 
the main spell misery for the creatures we profess 
to be so fond of. 

73 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 
(2) 

(A speech made at Kensington Town Hall, 1913) 

I am here to say a very few words on the whole 
question of the treatment of animals by our civi- 
lised selves. For I have no special knowledge, 
like some who will speak to you, of the training 
of performing animals; I have only a certain 
knowledge of human and animal natures, and a 
common sense which tells me that wild animals 
are more happy in freedom than in captivity — 
domestic animals more happy as companions 
than as clowns. And, quite apart from the defi- 
nite question of inhumanity, it is perfectly clear 
to me that these animal shows are among the many 
surviving evidences, the lingering symptoms, of 
a creed that — thank heaven ! — is beginning to 
pass, and must pass, from us. That creed said: 
We human beings have the right, for our plea- 
sure, convenience, and distraction, to disregard in 
the matter of dumb creatures those principles 
which our rehgion, morahty, and education fix as 
the guiding stars of our conduct toward human 
beings. (Please note that I do not touch on the 
question of our rights over dumb creatures in so 
far as our actual self-preservation is concerned; 
I limit my words to pleasure, convenience, profit, 
and distraction.) 

74 



PERFORMING ANIMALS 

Now: "Do unto others as you would they 
should do unto you !'' is not only the first princi- 
ple of Christianity, but the first principle of aU 
social conduct; the essence of that true gentility 
which is the only saving grace of men and women 
in aU ranks of life. And I am certain that the 
word " others ^^ cannot any longer be limited to 
the human creature. Whether or no animals 
have what are called "rights" is an academic 
question of no value whatever in the considera- 
tion of this matter. But, lest there be any one 
who wishes to take up this point of abstruse phi- 
losophy, I admit at once that animals have no 
more rights than have babies under the age when 
they may be said to have duties (on which rights, 
we are told, depend), that animals have no more 
rights than imbeciles, or those who are deaf, dumb, 
and blind. Rights or no rights, I care not; the 
fact remains that by so much as we inflict on sen- 
tient creatures unnecessary suffering, by so much 
have we outraged our own consciences, by so 
much fallen short of that secret standard of gen- 
tleness and generosity that, believe me, is the one 
firm guard of our social existence, the one bul- 
wark we have against relapse into savagery. 
Once admit that we have the right to inflict im- 
necessary suffering, and you have destroyed the 
very basis of human society, as we know it in 

75 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

this age. You have committed blasphemy, the 
only blasphemy that really matters — against 
your conscience. For the true conscience of this 
country is proved by the wording of the law, 
with its ruling that the infliction of unnecessary 
suffering is an offence; and in a country like this, 
the law does not precede, but follows, conscience. 
Let me quote the law, and the latest judicial dic- 
tum on it. 

Section I (1) of the Protection of Animals Act, 
1911: 

"If any person (a) shall cruelly ill-treat any animal 
... or being the owner shall by . . . unreasonably doing 
or omitting to do any act . . . cause any unnecessary 
suffering," he shall be guilty of an offence. 

And Mr. Justice Darling, on November 19, 1913, 
said: 

"Where unnecessary suffering is caused by some act 
of an owner, it cannot be justified on the ground of old 
custom, and of benefit to commercial persons." 

Nothing so endangers the fineness of the human 
heart as the possession of power over others; 
nothing so corrodes it as the callous or cruel ex- 
ercise of that power; and the more helpless the 
creature over whom power is cruelly or callously 
exercised, the more the human heart is corroded. 

76 



PERFORMING ANIMALS 

It is recognition of this truth which has brought 
the conscience of our age, and with it the law, 
to say that we cannot any longer with impunity 
regard ourselves as licensed torturers of the rest 
of creation; that we cannot, for our own sakes, 
afford it. 

In aU this matter, then, of the treatment of 
animals, it comes to the definition of the words 
"unnecessary suffering. '^ And I say this: All 
suffering that is inflicted merely for our pleasure, 
distraction, and even for our convenience and 
profit, as distinct from our preservation, is im- 
necessary and an abomination. And the fact 
that it is inflicted on creatures unable to raise 
hand to help themselves, or voice to tell us what 
they suffer, makes it ever the more abominable. 
Whether it be the destruction of mother birds 
(with their whole famihes of nestlings) for the 
sake of the nuptial plumes to be worn in the 
hats and hair of human mothers; or the painful 
docking of the tails of horses, their sole weapon 
against the torment of stinging flies, for the sake 
of an ugly fashion; whether it be the treacherous 
sale of horses worn out in our service; the snar- 
ing of rabbits in needlessly cruel traps; the turn- 
ing adiift of friendly but unwanted dogs and cats; 
whether it be the unnecessarily slow and painful 
slaughtering of animals for food; the wretched 

77 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

keeping in captivity of wild song-birds; the prison- 
ing of eagles, hawks, and many another creature 
that cannot bear confinement, in zoos and other 
places; whether it be any of these, or this some- 
times distressing and always mmatural training of 
performing animals — in all, suffering is inflicted for 
our pleasure, distraction, convenience, or profit, 
and all of it is unnecessary, all against the con- 
science of the age. 

To those who, tempted by the devil of irre- 
flection, say, "But this is the creed of senti- 
ment and softness,^' I return the answer: "Sir, 
no man ever became a stoic, and acquired the 
virtues of fortitude and courage, by inflicting pain 
on others." There is nothing in this new creed 
that prevents any one from inflicting on himself 
as much hardship, risk, and privation as he con- 
siders needful to inspire him with fortitude. 

Let me draw your attention to an anomaly, 
which accounts for most of our callousness toward 
the sufferings of animals. Nearly every one who 
witnesses with his own eyes the infliction of need- 
less pain on an animal feels revolted, and even 
hastens to the creature^s aid; yet these same 
men and women, or the vast, majority of them, 
merely hearing or reading of such things, pass by 
on the other side, with the feeling that to pay at- 
tention would be either credulous or sentimental. 

78 



PERFORMING ANIMALS 

Now, in regard to credulousness, note that it is 
hardly ever to the interest of any one to draw 
attention to cruelty — certainly not to fabricate 
such a charge; very much the contrary. And 
in regard to sentiment, there seems to be a slight 
confusion as to the meaning of that word. A 
man only moved by cruelty seen with his own 
eyes is no whit less sentimental than the man 
who takes fire at the mere recital of it; he is only 
more deficient in understanding, more cautious 
in judgment, or more sluggish in blood. Just as 
sentimental, but less sensitive. The longer I 
live, the more I become convinced that people 
only use that favourite reproach — sentimental — 
to stigmatise sympathy with sufferings that they 
themselves have been unwilling or unable to real- 
ise. The moment they do realise, they become 
just as "sentimental,^' just as moved by pity and 
anger — ^for that is what sentimental means — as 
those at whom they sneer. 

Ah ! but — says the public — even if there be suf- 
fering for animals, the pleasm-e that their freaks 
or their fur or their feathers give us is greater 
than this suffering; we are entitled to weigh the 
one against the other. Yet, few of that same 
public would dream of saying this if, with their 
own eyes, they saw the tortures; for them the 
pleasure they talk of would have vanished in the 

79 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

memory of those quivering visions. Out of sheer 
sluggishness of imagination, out of mere laziness 
of mind; then, is made that rather pitiable plea — 
our pleasure is greater than their suffering. 

Yes! Nearly all the suffering we inflict, 
whether on human beings or on animals, comes 
from our not thinking. Many people gravely dis- 
trust that practice. For all that, I venture to 
suggest that a little more thought will do no 
harm to any of us. 

We pass this way but once, but once tread this 
world, and live in communion with these furred 
and feathered things, many of them beautiful, 
in a thousand ways so like ourselves, often 
friendly if we would let them be, and yet who, 
one and all, are so simple and helpless in the face 
of our force and ingenuity. Shall we, as we van- 
ish, say: ^'I have lived my life as a true lord of 
creation, taking toll from the captivities and suf- 
ferings of every creature that had not my strength 
and cunning !'' Or shall we pass out with the 
thought : ' I wish I had not given needless pain to 
any living thing !' 



80 



TREATMENT OF ANIMALS 



VIVISECTION OF DOGS 

(Letters to The Times, 1913) 

(1) 

Whatever one's beliefs concerning the whole 
question of experiments on the living body, the 
vivisection of dogs is a strange anomaly. Even 
if it be granted that the dog, by reason of its in- 
telligence and nervous organisation, is more fitted 
than other animals for certain vivisectional ex- 
periments (though I believe this is disputed), 
there are yet basic considerations which make 
such treatment of the dog a scandalous betrayal. 
Man, no doubt, first bound or bred the dog to his 
service and companionship for purely utilitarian 
reasons; but we of to-day, by immemorial tradi- 
tion and a sentiment that has become almost as 
inherent in us as the sentiment toward children, 
give him a place in our lives utterly different 
from that which we accord to any other animal 
(not even excepting cats), a place that he has won 
for himself throughout the ages, and that he ever 
increasingly deserves. He is by far the nearest 
thing to man on the face of the earth, the one link 
that we have spiritually with the animal creation; 

81 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

the one dumb creature into whose eyes we can 
look and tell pretty well for certain what emotion, 
even what thought, is at work within; the one 
dumb creature which — ^not as a rare exception, 
but almost always — steadily feels the sentiments 
of love and trust. This special nature of the dog 
is our own handiwork, a thing instilled into him 
through thousands of years of intimacy, care, and 
mutual service, dehberately and ever more care- 
fully fostered; extraordinarily precious even to 
those of us who profess to be without sentiment. 
It is one of the prime factors of our daily lives in 
all classes of society — ^this mute partnership with 
dogs; and — ^we are still vivisecting them ! 

I am told that pro-vivisectionists are fighting 
tooth and nail against the bill (now in Committee 
stage in the House of Commons) which has for 
object the exemption of dogs from all vivisec- 
tional and inoculative experiments. If it indeed 
be so, I ask them: "Would you, any one of you, 
give your own dog up to the vivisector's knife, or 
respect a man who gave or sold you his dog for 
your experiments?" I take it they would reply: 
"We would not give our own dogs. We should 
think poorly of the man who sold or gave us his 
dog. The dogs we use are homeless, masterless 
dogs." And in turn I would answer: "There are 
no dogs born in this country without home or 

82 



VIVISECTION OF DOGS 

master. The dogs you use are those who have 
already fallen on cruelty or misfortune, whom as 
decent men you pity or should pity; these are 
the dogS; the lost dogs, that you take for your ex- 
periments, to make their ends more wretched than 
their Hves have been !'' 

If this be sentiment, it is not mere cultured 
sentiment, but based on a very real and simple 
sense of. what is decent. Miners, farmers, shep- 
herds, httle shopmen, gamekeepers, and humble 
men of all sorts, who own dogs, have precisely 
the same feeling — ^that the dog is essentially the 
friend of man, deserving loyal treatment. We 
all have this feeling; yet, when for our alleged 
benefit we want to violate it, we can still say: 
"Oh! it does not matter; this dog is already 
down!'^ In a word, what we would not do with 
our own dogs we have no right to do with dogs 
that have not had the luck to be ours. It is not 
so much a question of love of dogs as of decency 
and good faith in men. 

I do not wish to enter here into the general 
question of vivisection, but I do plead that, 
whether we believe in vivisection or not, we are 
boimd, in common honour, to make a clean and 
whole-hearted exception of the one creature whom 
we have trained to really trust and love us. By 
not doing so we injure the himian spirit. 

83 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

(2) 

I answer the rejoinders to my plea for the ex- 
emption of dogs from vivisection in no spirit of 
hostility to science, with all respect for investi- 
gators who are inspired by the desire to lessen 
the sum of suffering in the world, and not at all 
assuming that those who support the vivisection 
of dogs must needs be without fondness for their 
companionship. 

I suggest that there is a distinction between 
being "vivisected" (and in that word I include 
inoculations) to save your own life or lessen your 
own suffering, and being vivisected by your neigh- 
bours to save their lives or lessen their sufferings. 
The distinction indeed might almost be called 
profoimd. And if my contention that the dog 
has earned for himself a consideration from man, 
I do not say equal, but analogous to that which 
man has for his own species be admitted, it would 
follow that if we approve of cutting up and inocu- 
lating the dog, not for his individual benefit, but 
for our benefit and for that of his fellow dogs, we 
must also approve of cutting up and inoculating 
our children and ourselves, not for our individual 
benefit, but for the benefit of the race, having 
regard to the immeasurably more direct results 
which science would secure from vivisections and 

84 



VIVISECTION OF DOGS 

inoculations on the human body. It is possible, 
indeed, that some vivisectors are prepared, in the 
interests of the scientific treatment of disease, to 
say: "I am so entirely, so definitely convinced 
of the benefits to the human race of these experi- 
ments that I am ready to give not only my dog, 
bub my child, my wife, myself if necessary, for 
the good of mankind.'^ But I personally — and I 
venture to think there may be others of the same 
opinion — am not prepared to go so far. And I 
plead simply that if we are not ready to make 
martyrs of our children and heroes of ourselves, 
the time has come when we are no longer entitled 
to make martyrs of dogs. The issue raised, in 
fact, is whether or no the dog has reached a posi- 
tion where it becomes imethical to treat him as 
if he had not reached that position. 

There are innumerable people in all ranks of 
our civilised world who would echo the words I 
heard last night: "If I were condemned to spend 
twenty-four hours alone with a single creature, I 
would choose to spend them with my dog." 
Granting that most people would make two or 
three human exceptions, the saying expresses a 
true feeling. There is a quiet comfort in the 
companionship of a dog, with its ever-ready, 
touching himiility, which human companionship, 
save of the nearest, does not bring; and I assert 

85 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

that this boon to mankind — of dog's companion- 
ship — does raise the dog onto the pecnhar plane 
of ethical consideration which we apply to our- 
selves. There is no need to adduce stories of how 
'^Dash'' or "Don" saved the gardener's baby 
from setting herself on fire, or swam to the rescue 
of httle Thomas who was drowning; we have only 
to watch dogs in house or street. I noted three 
yesterday afternoon, the only three in the street 
at the moment. The first, a fox-terrier, was trot- 
ting along quite by himself with an air of mastery 
of London that could not have been excelled by 
the best "man of the world" amongst us. No 
other sort of animal could have even begun to 
walk the streets of man with that quiet, busy 
confidence. The second, a spaniel, was looking 
up at his mistress — ^it is not often that children 
and their mothers have the confidence in each 
other that those two certainly had. The third, a 
retriever, was towing an infirm old gentleman. 

Yes, the position of the dog is unique. We 
have made him intelligent; and it is sinister 
ethics to choose him for vivisections or inocula- 
tions because of the very intelligence we have im- 
planted. We have taught him faith and love, 
and I feel are ourselves bound by what we have 
taught him. Into other animals we have not in- 
stilled these qualities; we are, therefore, not bound 

86 



VIVISECTION OF DOGS 

to the same special faith with them that we owe 
to the dog. 

My plea being simply that men cannot make 
friends of dogs and then treat them as if that re- 
lationship did not exist; I am not concerned to 
discuss the disputed question of whether or not 
special benefit does arise from experiments on 
dogs; but in regard to suffering in such experi- 
ments, take the Home Office returns for 1911. 
"Dogs and cats experimented upon without ances- 
theticSy 452. Dogs and cats allowed to recover 
after serious operations, 393/' and the words of 
the report of the Royal Commission on Vivisec- 
tion: "It is clear that, even if the initial procedure 
may be regarded as trivial; the subsequent re- 
sults of this procedure must; in some cases at any 
rate, be productive of great pain and much suf- 
fering.'' 

After aU; we have not only bodies but spirits, 
and when our minds have once become alive to 
ethical doubt on a question such as this — (there 
are 870,000 signatures to a petition for the total 
exemption of dogs from vivisection) — ^when we 
are no longer sure that we have the right so to 
treat our dog comrades, there has fallen a shadow 
on the hiunan conscience that will surely grow, 
until; by adjustment of our actions to our ethical 
sense; it has been remedied. 

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MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

VI 

HORSES IN MINES 

(1) 

(A Letter to The Times, 1910)' 

The experience which has just befallen the 
three hundred horses and ponies imprisoned un- 
derground during the strike riots at Clydach Vale 
spurs me to an appeal to all owners of collieries 
and mines to abandon, so far as possible, the use 
of horses and ponies below ground. 

The question of the treatment of pit ponies has 
of late attracted much attention, and is under ex- 
amination by the Royal Commission on Mines. 
Into discussion of the truth of particular stories 
of cruelty I do not intend to enter. I have no 
first-hand knowledge, and, short of becoming a 
pit-pony driver or mine-inspector, no real chance 
of obtaining any. I wish simply to draw the at- 
tention of owners of collieries and mines to cer- 
tain considerations that need not in the least 
hurt a belief in their own humanity or that of 
their employees. 

Apart from the aberrations of human brutes, 
who flourish as well above ground as below, 

88 



HORSES IN MINES 

cruelty in these days is not deliberate^ but requires 
for its existence three primary fostering condi- 
tions: the first, an overdriven or irritated state 
of nerves; the second, secrecy; the third, a help- 
less object. 

The first of these conditions is always more or 
less present in mine work, not only because of 
the atmosphere and unnatural environment, but 
also because a certain amount of work has to be 
got through under difficulties in a certain amoimt 
of time. The second of these conditions is always 
present to a greater extent than it is almost any- 
where above ground. The third of these condi- 
tions is obviously present. In mines and collier- 
ies, therefore, we have human nature, neither 
better nor worse underground than it is above, 
working continually imder circumstances in which 
the three primary fostering conditions of cruelty 
are present. We thus have a prima facie case 
for supposing— all other things being equal — that 
there must be more cruelty in the treatment of 
animals underground than on the surface. If 
there were not, it would mean that miners were 
not only as humane as the rest of mankind, which 
is freely admitted, but much more humane, which 
is not likely. The existence of these three pri- 
mary fostering conditions in perpetual combina- 
tion, in fact, renders the conclusion, apart from 

89 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

all actual evidence, as inevitable as a chemical 
equation. 

But far beyond all this we have the fact that 
herbivorous animals, accustomed to daylight and 
fresh air, are kept from the age of four to the age 
at which they are about to die, in a place where 
no green thing of any sort can grow, where the 
air is strange and dark, and there is neither rain 
nor sunshine. And, further, we have those occa- 
sional catastrophes, such as that which so nearly 
did to death the unfortunate three hundred horses 
in Clydach Vale. 

One assumes as a matter of course that mine- 
owners are as personally himiane in their treat- 
ment of animals as the rest of us; that they do 
not lack desire to see that their ponies and horses 
underground are treated well; that they would 
recoil from the sight of neglectful treatment of 
four-legged creatures that came under their own 
eyes. I merely appeal to them to consider, apart 
from the breezes and contradictions of a vexed 
question, the plain common sense of the matter. 
There may be thousands of well-fed, well-treated, 
well-kept ponies employed in pits; but with hu- 
man nature and animal nature fixed quantities, 
and the conditions what they are, must there not 
inevitably be far more suffering, on the whole, in 
their lives undergroimd than in the lives of ani- 

90 



HORSES IN MINES 

mals employed on the surface ? The heart of the 
matter Hes in the mmatural conditions. 

SmaU engines are used with success both here 
and abroad for some kinds of mine traction. For 
other kinds of mine traction animals may always 
have to be employed — ^though that is a hard say- 
ing, seeing what human ingenuity can accom- 
plish. But surely a great deal more of the trac- 
tion in English colHeries and mines could be done 
by engines, with safety and economy. Is it too 
much to beg kindly men that they should do their 
utmost to substitute, so far as possible, this me- 
chanical traction for the labour of those four- 
legged creatures whose lives underground must, 
even in the best circumstances, be unnatural and 
sad? 

It is no more desirable for human beings than 
for animals to have to spend their lives under- 
ground; and what men can put up with, animals 
certainly can. But men have at all events some 
choice in the matter, and they do spend half the 
week at least, on the surface. 

The unnatural conditions of our own lives do 
not justify us in employing animals under un- 
natural conditions where we can avoid it. I take 
it we all wish to see suffering reduced to its irre- 
ducible minimum. 



91 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 
(2) 

(A Letter to The Times, 1913) 

The inspectors appointed to carry out the pro- 
visions of the Coal Mines (Regulation) Act in re- 
gard to pit ponies are to be six in number — one 
for each division in the United Kingdom, which 
contains 3,325 coal-mines. 

I imderstand that this provision is based on 
the grounds that the ordinary mine-inspectors, of 
whom there are many, will not be thereby ab- 
solved from that part of their duties; and that 
the multiphcation of officials is an expensive and 
undesirable thing. 

I wish to point out that the ordinary inspectors 
will, almost to a man, feel that the appointment 
of special inspectors in regard to a particular 
branch of their duties, reheves them from what 
is a very thankless job. It is only human nature 
not to want to spy on one's own kind if one is 
not absolutely obliged. 

Under the ordinary system of inspection, the 
figures for the year 1907 give only twenty-two 
prosecutions for cruelty to animals xmderground 
in the United Kingdom. Taking the boys and 
men employed in mines as average kindly folk, 
neither more nor less given to cruelty than the 
rest of us, this number of prosecutions would 

92 



HORSES IN MINES 

work out, relatively to opportiinity, at extraor- 
dinarily below the number of prosecutions above 
ground. And we can only deduce from this the 
fact that the conditions in mines are such that 
acts which above ground would lead to prosecu- 
tion pass unnoticed underground. 

I do beg the home secretary to reconsider this 
aspect of the question — ^that is to say, the cer- 
tainty that the appointment of special inspectors 
of animals will in practice bring a feeling of ab- 
solution to the ordinary inspector, from the duty 
of reporting on animals. 

For, if this is admitted, the number of six 
special inspectors is shown to be ludicrous. It 
means about two mines a day all the year round 
for each inspector. Those of us who have been 
down coal-mines know how perfunctory such in- 
spection must be. 

It is certainly undesirable to multiply officials 
without due cause; but there really is a point of 
common sense and compromise which will hardly 
be reached even if twelve instead of six special 
inspectors are appointed. 

The new regulations are admirably wide, and 
directed to bettering the lives of these unfortunate 
little beasts; for, putting ever5rthing at the best, 
they remain imfortunate compared with their 
brethren above ground. But these regulations 

93 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

will want a lot of looking after, especially at first, 
if they are not to be a dead letter. 

The great bulk of our material comfort comes 
out of our coal-mines; surely we can spare a little 
more of it than this, to guarantee as far as we 
can the welfare of the ponies. 



vn 

THE DOCKING OF HORSES' TAILS 

(Foreword to a pamphlet, 1913) 

In the year A. D. 785 the Council of Celchyth 
— ^it seems — ^thus addressed our ancestors: 

From the influence of a vile and unbecoming custom 
you deform and mutilate your horses. . . . You cut off 
their tails; and when you enjoy them uninjured and per- 
fect, you choose rather to maim and blemish them, so as 
to make them odious and disgustful objects to all who 
see them. . . . This you are admonished to renounce. 

Thus the Council of Celchyth in A. D. 785. 
The Council of Westminster in A. D. 1913 has 
not yet been moved to admonish us, in the only 
way it can — ^by law — ^to renounce this "vile and 
unbecoming custom" of docking the tails of 
horses. 

"Vile and unbecoming!" If it be not, still 
vile to mutilate a defenceless beast (sometimes 

94 



'^DOCKING" 

at cost of acute suffering) for the sake of a fash- 
ion, and of a market value dictated by that fash- 
ion; if it be not, still vile to deprive a very sen- 
sitive animal of its natural protection against 
stinging insects, and against the exposure of what 
ought to be protected — ^by what word shall we 
describe this practice ? And if it be not, still, un- 
becoming to destroy the untouched sweep and 
grace of one of the most beautiful of creatures, 
and turn what is natural and decent into the in- 
decently grotesque — ^what significance has all oiu* 
talk of beauty, and all our so-called taste? The 
idea that a natural tail causes carriage accidents 
is an exploded myth. The plea that a docked 
tail saves trouble in cleaning is readily met, if need 
be, by shortening the hair of the tail as far as the 
end of the "dock^^ or bone of the tail, without 
touching the bone itself. The tail will then be 
as short as even a stable-hand can reasonably de- 
sire, the horse not mutilated, and the hair ready 
to grow again. 

In certain exceptional circumstances it may be 
necessary to dock a horse. But, to make a fash- 
ion of it ! . . . 

Ye gods ! What a sense of beauty and of de- 
cency we must have, to approve the miserable 
stumps left on our horses by this "disgustful" 
practice! If we must indulge in mutilation for 

95 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

the sake hi " beauty/' let us perform on our- 
selves; tattoo our faces, perforate our lips, flat- 
ten our craniums, with other devices suitable to 
savages. But let us leave the horse alone, who 
in his unmutilated state is far less in need of 
" decoration '^ than we. 

There are some customs that seem to spell 
despair. How far, indeed, are we removed from 
savages, when we can blindly follow a custom so 
thoughtless and tormenting, so stupid and ugly? 



VIII 
AIGRETTES 

(A Note in Pearson^ s Magazine, 1913) 

Am I in favour of legislation prohibiting the 
importation of plumage into Great Britain? 

I cannot conceive of any one, man or woman, 
with imagination and knowledge of the facts, 
who would not be in favour of such legislation. 
That Englishwomen — English ladies — after years 
of revelation concerning this dismal matter, 
should continue to support by their demands the 
killing of myriads of beautiful birds at breeding 
season, is the most discouraging instance I know 
of the wilful blindness of the human creature 
whose vanity is threatened. 

96 



AIGRETTES 

American law has banned the aigrette; why- 
does EngHsh law lag behind ? 

Not one of our legislators would torture a bird, 
yet, because a few thousand miles separate them 
from the scenes of this butchery, they seem either 
unable to imagine what it means or to find time 
to put a stop to it. I commend to one and all the 
report of the House of Lords Committee, who 
examined the whole question some years ago, and 
said: 

'^The evidence has been such as to show con- 
clusively in the opinion of the Committee, that 
not only are birds of many species slaughtered 
recklessly, but also that the methods employed 
for slaughter are such as in many cases, and es- 
pecially in that of egrets, to involve the destruc- 
tion of the young birds and eggs.'' 

"Birds are, as a rule, in their finest plumage 
at the time of nesting, and have been shown to 
be especially the prey of hunters at that season." 

Such Committees should not be appointed, if 
their conclusions are not to be paid attention to. 



97 



CONCERNING LAWS 



ON PROCEDURE IN PARLIAMENT 

(A Letter to The Times, 1914) 

I am moved to speak out what, I am sure, 
many are feeling. We are a so-called civiKsed 
country; we have a so-called Christian religion; 
we profess humanity. We have an elected Par- 
liament, to each member of which we pay ;^400 
a year; so that we have at least some right to 
say: "Please do our business, and that quickly !" 

And yet we sit and suffer such barbarities and 
mean cruelties to go on among us, as must dry 
the heart of God. I cite at random a few only 
of the abhorrent things done daily, daily left un- 
done; done and left undone without a shadow of 
a doubt, against the conscience and general will 
of the community: 

(1) Sweating of women workers. 

(2) Insufficient feeding of children. 

(3) Employment of boys on work that to all 
intents ruins their chances in after-life. 

(4) Foul housing of those who have as much 
right as you and I to the first decencies of life. 

98 



CONCERNING LAWS 

(5) Consignment of paupers (that is, those 
without money or friends) to limatic asylimis on 
the certificate of one doctor — ^the certificate of 
two doctors being essential in the case of a person 
who has money or friends. 

(6) Export of horses worn out in work. Export 
that, for a few pieces of blood-money delivers up 
old and faithful servants to wretchedness. 

(7) Mutilation of horses by docking, so that 
they suffer, offend the eye, and are defenceless 
against the attacks of flies. 

(8) Caging of wild things, especially wild song- 
birds, by those who themselves think hberty the 
breath of life. 

(9) Slaughter for food of millions of creatures 
every year by methods that can easily be im- 
proved. 

(10) Importation of the plumes of ruthlessly 
slain wild birds, mothers with yoimg in the nest, 
to decorate our women. 

Such as these — shameful barbarities done to 
helpless creatiu-es — ^we suffer among us year after 
year. They are admitted to be anathema; in 
favour of their abolition there would be found 
at any moment a round majority of unfettered 
Parliamentary and general opinion. One and all 
they are removable, and many of them by small 
expenditure of Parliamentary time, public money, 

99 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

and expert care. It is pitiable that, for mere 
want of Parliamentary time, we cannot get mani- 
fest sores such as these treated and banished once 
for all from the nation's body; pitiable that due 
machineiy cannot be devised to deal with these 
and other barbarities to man and beast, con- 
cerning which, in the main, no real controversy 
exists; scandalous that their removal should be 
left to the mercy of the ballot, to private mem- 
bers' bills — Pliable to be obstructed; or to the 
hampered and inadequate efforts of societies un- 
supported by legislation. 

Rome, I know, was not built in a day. Parlia- 
ment works hard, has worked harder during these 
last years than ever perhaps before; all honour 
to it for that ! It is an august assembly of which 
I wish to speak with all respect. But it works 
without sense of proportion, or sense of humour. 
Over and over again it turns things already 
talked into their graves; over and over again 
listens to the same partisan bickerings, to argu- 
ments which everybody knows by heart. And 
all the time the fires of live misery that could, 
most of them, so easily be put out, are raging, 
and the reek thereof is going up. 

It is I, of course, who will be mocked at for 
lack of the senses of proportion and humour. 
But if the tale of hours spent on certain party 

100 



CONCERNING LAWS 

measures be set against the tale of hours not yet 
spent on measures of himianity, the mockers will 
yet be mocked. 

I am not one of those who beheve we can do 
without party; but I do see and I do say that 
party business absorbs far too much of the time 
that our common humanity demands for the re- 
dress of crying shames. And if laymen see this 
with grief and anger, how much more poignant 
must be the feeHng of members of Parliament 
themselves, to whom alone remedy has been in- 
trusted ! 

II 

THE NATURE OF LAWS 

(Written in 1913) 

Among comments on the foregoing letter, there 
occurred again and again criticisms conveniently 
summed up in a sentence from an American 
journal: "It is not the part of Government to 
make men moral. ^' 

One who is generally blamed for offering no 
practical remedies for the hard cases he provides 
is not quite so foolish as to think men are to be 
made into angels by Law. Cut-and-dried for- 
mulae are hardly his little gods; and he knows 
well that far more important than change and re- 

101 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

form of laws and systems is improvement in the 
spirit of the men who administer them. For all 
that, it is fatal to think that public feeling can be 
divorced from Law in the social organism. In 
effect these critics say: 

'It is impossible to diminish cruelty and injus- 
tice, by Law; any attempt to do so will only 
divert the cruelty or injustice banned, to another 
form of expression.' Very well! It is therefore 
demonstrably needless and even ridiculous to 
prohibit by Law — ^murder, rape, and the deHb- 
erate torture of children. The murderer, the 
ravisher, and the torturer should be allowed to 
vent their cruelty in these forms, for fear that if 
they are nob so allowed, they will vent it in other 
forms! That is the reductio ad absurdum im- 
plicit in all such anarchistic doctrine; and how 
far it is really held by those who talk of the futility 
of passing laws against inhumanity one must 
leave to their own consciences. In any case the 
doctrine takes no accoimt of the real nature of 
laws. In a democratic society, such as ours, only 
Public Opinion, or I would rather say, the true, 
secret consensus of general thought, makes laws 
possible — I am speaking of laws against inhu- 
manity. And laws, so made, are but constant re- 
minders to every one that public opinion is against 
such and such a thing. Laws were made against 

102 



CONCERNING LAWS 

murder and rape because public feeling against 
such acts became so strong that; imtil the laws 
were made, normal individuals did not rest till 
they had torn to pieces persons who acted in such 
abnormal ways. It was therefore considered 
more convenient that certain recognised profes- 
sional persons should undertake the work of pun- 
ishment. And so on through all the gamut of 
laws down to those against quite minor cruelties, 
which would not perhaps provoke individual re- 
taliation, but which nevertheless would evoke 
pity and anger from a majority of those who with 
their own eyes saw them inflicted. Admitting that 
the state of public feeling toward a particular form 
of cruelty must always be more or less a matter 
of discretionary judgment for legislators, it is 
yet quite wrong to suppose that laws must wait 
until the majority of individuals in a community 
have openly declared a feeling of which perhaps, 
never having been tested personally, they are not 
conscious. When one urges the passing of laws 
to prohibit certain cruelties, one is only urging 
that the legislature should give concrete expres- 
sion to what it believes would be the general 
opinion of the country if every man and woman 
therein could be taken apart — ^isolated, as juries 
are — and then actually put face to face with in- 
stances of these cruelties, so that they might 

103 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

judge them with the fresh and genuine feelings 
of unfettered men and women. One is, in fact, 
only urging the recording of a judgment which 
he believes to have been secretly delivered; ask- 
ing that this secret judgment should be published 
in the form of Law as a daily and forcible reminder 
that some things are 'not done/ 

'Ah!' would say these critics who want to see 
no more Laws made because men cannot be made 
humane by Law, and who certainly should logi- 
cally wish all our present laws removed by Law 
(for this criticism is radical and not one of de- 
gree!) — 'Ah! but/ they would say, 'all you have 
done is to make A. and B. mechanically avoid, 
for example, caging wild song-birds, or docking 
horses' tails; but the devil of natural man is so 
strong in A. and B. that they will instantly set 
to work to invent some other form of torture.' 
This is too cynical. Many of the cruelties that 
can be prohibited by Law — that is to say those 
for whose prohibition the true and secret public 
feeling is ripe — are cruelties that come rather 
from lack of thought than from a natural sav- 
agery. And it is very large order to say that, 
because you stop A. and B. from 'not thinking' 
in a certain direction, their lack of thought must 
result in other cruelties. True, the reason for 
their 'lack of thought' is often that they profit by 

104 



CONCERNING LAWS 

it; but even so, it does not follow that if one 
channel of thoughtless and pain-provoking profit 
be cut off, they must necessarily seek another. 
As a fact, many social cruelties (such as the 
sweating of women, foul housing, and the harm- 
ful kind of child labour) are but dubious sources 
of profit in the long run; and some cruelties prac- 
tised on animals (such as the wearing of certain 
feathers, or the docking of horses' tails) are but 
the outcome of ^fashion.' 

To put it another way: We feel there are cer- 
tain things our neighbours must not do — we even 
feel that we ourselves must not do them; and 
we pass laws to put it out of our own reach to 
yield to the temptation of profit or temper ! 

Take a person who is guiltless of thought or 
temptation in the matter, and show him first a 
number of wild song-birds in freedom, and then 
a bird-fancier's shop, with the same kinds of birds 
in their tiny cages, and ask him whether or no 
he thinks they ought to be kept like that. In 
nine cases out of ten he will say: ^Toor little 
beggars, no!" 

If then the legislature passes a law to penalise 
such caging, this law will be effective and will in 
time stop wild birds from being caged, because 
the secret feeling of the majority is really against 
such a practice. 

105 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

But pass a law to penalise the moderate smack- 
ing of small naughty children, it will simply be 
disregarded, because nine out of ten people do 
not see any harm in either their neighbours or 
themselves moderately smacking their imps. 

Spirit and Body (that is, public feeling and the 
law) in the social organism are as inextricably 
conjoint as the spirit and body of a man — ^pub- 
lic feeling needing its proper clothing of laws, as 
our souls need due clothing by our bodies. And 
if men cannot be made kind by law, they can and 
are by law reminded that they must not, under 
temptation, do what, in cool and disinterested 
blood, they disapprove of their neighbours doing. 

But there is another and perhaps more convinc- 
ing answer to these critics. You say it's no 
good passing laws. If men are prevented from 
ill-treating one object, they'll only ill-treat an- 
other. So be it ! Is that any reason for not try- 
ing to save the victims of such cruelty as we can 
actually see? Are we in fact to disregard the suf- 
ferer because his torture may break out in a 
fresh direction? That would be as much as to 
say that a man watching another making his 
beasts go faster to market by jabbing them with 
a pitchfork, must pass by on the other side and 
do nothing to help the creatures, because, if the 
prodder be prevented, he may to-morrow cut off 

106 



CONCERNING LAWS 

the tail of his horse to improve the poor brute's 
value. No ! Where you see cruelty; stop it ! On 
that principle the individual and the State know 
where they are; the opposite is but that: "What's 
the good of anyfink — ^why ! noffink !" philosophy, 
which; purged from all need for effort, in a world 
of facts, is so truly ethereal and pleasant to hold ! 

Some of these critics, no doubt, would carry 
the matter further. ^We don't think of the ob- 
ject,' they would say, 'because the weak must go 
to the wall, cruelty being inherent in the strug- 
gle for existence.' Well! The sort of cruelties 
we have any chance of legislating against are cer- 
tainly not necessary to the preservation of our 
existence; they are luxuries, excrescences, or that 
kind of short cut which often takes one round the 
longer way. The struggle for sheer existence we 
cannot, of course, annul; it goes on, and always 
will. But in this age, the human being has surely 
got to say: 'I am not only thankful that I am 
alive but that all these other creatures are alive; 
I am not only thankful that I am without pain 
but that none of these others are in pain either. 
I ^vish the world to be a decent place for them as 
well as for myseK!' 

And if these critics, returning to their mutton, 
say: 'Quite so, sir, we desire that as much as 
you, perhaps more; we only tell you that you 

107 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

can't make men feel like that by law!' the an- 
swer once more is: 'Freely admitted! But if 
you do not concrete and record in laws such hu- 
mane feelings as you secretly and truly have, if 
you do not keep the body of the social organism 
in time and tune with its soul, you are handicap- 
ping the growth of your humane feehng for want 
of signboards against temptation to profit at the 
expense of others; and you are passing by on 
the other side, instead of going to the help of 
those you see being ill-treated.' 



Ill 
PASSING 

(From The Westminster Gazette, 1914) 

I was standing on the Bridge before dawn of 
the summer morning; heat mist down on the 
water, and the bright face of Big Ben up there, 
disjoint, set as it were in sky — so dark it was. 

I had been there some time, seeking what air 
there might be in the town, staring vaguely down 
the broad way of blackness between the misted 
lights of the river banks, thinking idle thoughts, 
dreaming perhaps a little, when suddenly I be- 
came conscious of something on the parapet. It 

108 



CONCERNING LAWS 

seemed to be perching there; a thin, gray shape, 
without face or limbs; and, peering at it, I sidled 
along, till I found that I was getting no nearer ! 
Startled, I said: 

"What is that? Who is it?" 

Only a faint sigh answered. 

I called again: "Who are you?'' 

A soft voice replied: 

"Don't be alarmed, sir; I am the Plumage 

Its shape had grown no clearer; but in sheer 
amazement I went on speaking as though it were 
a being. 

"What are you doing out here? Why aren't 
you in there?" 

And I pointed to Big Ben. 

The voice answered again: 

"They have no time for me, sir. I am resting 
a moment before I pass." 

"But," I said, "you ^pass' in there, not out 
here!" 

I could have sworn I heard it laugh, much as a 
dying child will laugh if you show it a jimiping 
toy. 

" Oh ! no, sir ! It is here we pass into nothing 
and the summer night." 

And, as it spoke, around me came the most 
extraordinary beating and vibration in the air, 

109 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

a kind of white-gray wonder of invisible wings 
wheeling and hovering. The whole of dark space 
seemed full of millions of these invisible wings, 
so that I stood utterly bewildered. Then from 
oat of that noiseless swirl rose suddenly hundreds 
of thousands of tiny voices as of birds too young 
to fly, calling, crying, calling. And, flinging up 
my hands, I pressed them against the drums of 
my ears till I thought I should break them in, 
but stiQ I heard the hundreds of thousands of 
shrill little voices crying and crying. 

"Hush!" I called out: "For heaven^s sake, 
hush!" 

But on they went, feeble and shrill amid that 
invisible swirl of winged mothers trying to reach 
and feed them; then, just as I thought I could 
bear it no longer, the mist on the water curled 
over and broke like a wave; something sighed 
out: "Farewell!" and the thin gray shape was 
no longer there. 

The Bridge stretched empty; Big Ben glowed 
in the sky. I drew a long breath and turned to 
look down at the water. There, on the parapet, 
was that thin gray shape again ! 

"Not gone?" I cried. 

A voice answered : 

"Sir, I have only just come. I am the Bill of 
the Worn-Out Horses." 

110 



CONCERNING LAWS 

"What r' I cried; "had they no time even for 
you?" 

And, as I spoke, I heard the sound of thousands 
of hoofs, and saw, passing me slowly on the dark 
air, the gaunt shapes of horses. From side to 
side, up, down — ^horses dragging worn feet, halt- 
ing, passing — ^their heads lower than their hoofs. 

And I cried out: "For Christ's sake, pass!'' 

The voice answered: "We pass, sir. Fare- 
well !" 

With a sound of plunging the water rose black 
through the mist to the level of the Bridge, fell 
again, and all was once more still. 

"I'm haunted!" I thought; and crossed to 
the other side. There, again, before me on the 
parapet was a gray shape that said: 

"I am the Bill of the Slaughtered Beasts." 

And, on the instant, there came at me in the 
air, as though I were the centre of a wheel, a 
million spokes of beasts, great beasts and little, 
snorting, writhing, quivering, with a sound of 
the gurgling of blood. And in terror I cried: 
"Pass!" 

The voice answered: 

"We pass, sir. Farewell!" 

And the river ran by, below, swollen to the 
height of a hill — all red. 

I began to run, crying out: "Enough!" 
Ill 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

But still there on the parapet before me was 
the thin gray shape, and its voice said: 

"I am the BiU of the Caged WHd Song-Birds.'^ 

And from the darkness above came the flutter 
of myriads of tiny hearts maddened with terror 
and a sound such as no other man can have heard; 
of thousands on thousands of little wings strug- 
gling, beating, struggling against cage wires. 
That sound came slanting down to the water like 
a swallow dipping, and passed — ^invisible as wind. 

On either parapet, before me, behind, were 
many, many thin gray shapes, like rows of pen- 
guins. They sighed and waved, moving this way 
and that, as though saying farewell, then one by 
one dived and passed into the dark water below. 
And the whole air was alive with the sobbing of 
men and women, of children, and the cries of pain 
and terror from beasts and birds. And just as I 
thought that I, too, would leap down into the 
water and escape, the dawn broke. . . . 

I rubbed my eyes. Nothing there, save the 
river running quiet and full, with a gray sheen on 
it; that bright clock joined once more to earth 
by its tower; and the sky flecked from pole to 
pole with tiny white clouds. A breeze fanned 
my face. Beside me on the Bridge a gentleman 
in top-hat and black coat was stretching himself 
and breathing deeply. I turned to him. 

112 



CONCERNING LAWS 

"Did you see them, sir?'' 

"See what ?^' 

"The BiUs." 

"WhatBiUs?'' 

"The Bills of Suffering ! There, on the parapet ; 
thin gray things, passing into nothing and the sum- 
mer night?" 

He looked at me, and I saw he thought I was 
demented. Then, with a smile on his pleasant 
red face, he pointed to the Clock Tower, and said : 

"Bills ! I get enough of them in there ! " 

"Didn't you even hear them?'' 

He answered coldly: 

"My dear sir, I am a matter-of-fact and hard- 
worked man, with no time to ^see' things; I have 
seen and heard nothing. I came out here for a 
breath of air after sitting there all night !" And 
poimding with his clinched fist at the air, he 
added : 

"We have just had a glorious scrap !" 

Understanding then that I must have dreamed, 
I begged his pardon and moved toward home, 
passing the Clock Tower. 



113 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

IV 

THE MODERN STOIC: AN ILL-NATURED 
DUOLOGUE 

(From The Outlook, 1913) 

"Well, I can only say that to my mind it^s just 
another appeal to false emotion; pandering to 
the softness of om- times. This mawkish human- 
itarianism is imdermining our virility. I protest 
against all this agitation and rotabout suffering/' 

^'Suffering of others is what you mean, I be- 
lieve ?'' 

'^How do you know they suffer?'' 

"Forgive me, but where there is aU the prima- 
facie evidence of suffering, it is surely 'up' to you 
to prove its non-existence. Now, if you your- 
self were to try these various experiences of ani- 
mals which you tell us it is mawkish to concern 
ourselves about, then when you say they are 
nothing, we shall perhaps believe you." 

"Ah! Will you be good enough to suggest 
how I can do that?" 

"Get yourself chained to your study chair — • 
as a watch-dog is to its kennel — ^for a year or so. 
You could then write convincingly on our mor- 
bidity for desiring to do away with your chain 
by law. 'It is nothing,' you would say; 'no 

114 



CONCERNING LAWS 

virile person — ' Or, better, cause yourself to be 
taken down a mine and kept there all your life 
working goodness knows how many hours a day, 
like one of those pit ponies, to gush about whose 
sufferings you told me was effeminate. The 
papers would be delighted to get a letter from 
your death-bed saying that it was all greatly ex- 
aggerated." 

"Your suggestions don't excite me, so far,," 
"Very well. Why not, in the interests of 
science, submit your body to some of the less ex- 
acting vivisections, in order that you may rein- 
force from personal experience your remarks 
about the squeamishness of cranks, and the effi- 
cacy of curare. For, think how much more val- 
uable to us all experiments on the human you 
would be! I won't go so far as to suggest that 
you should be killed for food; for even under the 
comparatively slow present methods, which, in 
contempt of morbid sensibility, I suppose you 
would uphold, you would not be in a condition 
(though you might possibly have time) to write 
a letter to the paper saying that your suffering 
was really nothing. No ! I should rather advise 
you to have little bits cut off your ears — a pity 
you have not a tail ! — ^but the effect can well be 
got by having your hands tied behind you on a 
hot day in a fly-infested field. We should then 

115 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

get from you a definite pronouncement that the 
sufferings of being nicked and docked are nothing, 
instead of the mere contemptuous silence with 
which you at present regard our mawkish at- 
tempts to stop these processes. Oh! there are 
lots of things you could experience, so that your 
letters to the press might acquire that convincing 
quality which at present seems to me rather 
lacking/' 

'^ Quite finished? You forget a little, don't 
you, that a himian being is not an animal; so that 
if I followed your charming suggestions I should 
still be no nearer knowing whether or no animals 
suffer, as you say they do.'' 

"Oh! there's no necessity for you to restrict 
your experiences to those which you advocate for 
animals. I've noticed that you are always com- 
plaining of the morbid twaddle talked about the 
sufferings of criminals, the unhappily married, 
and the poor. It would very much increase our 
respect for your pronouncements if you would 
cause yourself to be confined to a space eight feet 
by twelve, in your own company, for twenty-three 
hours out of twenty-four, for those nine months, 
whose reduction not long ago in the case of con- 
victs, I remember you disapproved of. Or again, 
if you would marry a hopeless inebriate, or merely 
grow to hate your wife — a letter from you to some 

116 



CONCERNING LAWS 

well-known journal to say that it was all really 
of no consequence would then be of incalculably 
greater value than it is at present. Or dare I hope 
that you might be induced to embrace the career 
of making match-boxes, or carding buttons, or 
sewing shirts or trousers for, say, twelve or fifteen 
hours a day, on a wage of seven shillings or so a 
week, in order that we might have the benefit of 
knowing that your strenuous remarks about the 
mawkishness of believing that the poor really 
suffer were inspired by a thorough and personal 
knowledge of the subject.^' 

^^ You're unfortunate in your choice of suffer- 
ings. Those you mention are all necessary — 
society being what it is." 

"Oh! then you admit that they are suffer- 
ings?'' 

"To an extent — ^much exaggerated." 

"Very well! You have not yet, I perceive, 
grasped my points: First, what gives you the right 
to say these sufferings are necessary to society, 
and to interfere with our attempts to reduce them 
so far as we can? Secondly, what makes you an 
authority at all on the nature and degree of suf- 
fering?" 

"I refuse to answer your first question, which 
I consider insolent. As to the second, which is 
also insolent, of what use is one's imagination, if 

117 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

not to gauge the experiences of others without 
experiencing them one^s self?'' 

"My dear sir, imagination is not, beheve me, a 
mere capacity for faihng to grasp what you have 
not yourself experienced. It is an active quality 
and even when stretched to the utmost is a little 
liable to fall short of the poignancy of experience. 
Let me remind you of Poe's tale about the man on 
whom the walls of a room gradually closed in. 
That tale, I am sure, made even you feel that his 
sufferings might not be nil — though I honestly 
believe it only roused you because it was so obvi- 
ously romance. But do you think your imagina- 
tion when you read the story really provided you 
with the intensity of the sensations of that man, 
especially at the moment when the walls were 
grinding his bones?" 

"That was, as you say, romance. But you 
himianitarians are always magnifying and dis- 
torting into the dreadful what is very ordinary 
experience; your imaginations are your masters, 
not your servants. What you want is to be 
familiarised with the ordinary sights of nature, 
and the look of blood; we shouldn't then have all 
this namby-pambyism to put up with." 

"You recommend that we should be famiHar- 
ised with the sight of blood? Might I suggest 
that no blood could be so educative as that of 

118 



CONCERNING LAWS 

one who propounds the doctrine: Suffering is nil! 
Let your own blood flow for our enlightenment. 
Beheve me, we shall pay a much more rapt atten- 
tion to it than we should to that of any other 
creature." 

"That, as you well know, is an absurd sugges- 
tion." 

"Yes! Quite. But what I want you to ap- 
preciate is, how tiny the difference between us is. 
We think that a man should make light of his 
own suffering, but make light the suffering of 
others. Now, transposing that first 'of would 
make our philosophy identical with yours." 

"And how do you know that I have not suffer- 
ings, made light of — hidden from every one?" 

"Have you? We have, you see, no means of 
knowing; and you must prove it if you wish for 
the luxury of having attention paid to you when 
you make light of the suffering of others. But 
if indeed you have, are you not a most unhappy 
person in that you do not let a f ellow-f eehng make 
you wondrous kind?" 

"Ah! I thought that was coming. Shall I tell 
you my opinion of you, sir? You are a sickly 
sentimentalist." 

"My feeling about you is not so hackneyed. 
With your philosophy of: '/ am all right. Let 
them suffer!' — ^you are — the Modern Stoic." 

119 



ON PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT 

I 

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

(1) 

(An open letter to the home secretary — at that time, May, 1909, 

the Right Honourable Herbert John Gladstone, 

M. P.) Printed in * The Nation.' 

Sir: — In addressing you, I desire to say that I 
do so with a gratitude and respect that must be 
shared by those who know how much you have 
already done for the improvement of our prison 
system. 

I head this letter "Sohtary Confinement^' be- 
cause, though the expression has long been o^- 
cially abandoned in favour of the term "Separate 
Confinement/' it more adequately defines the 
seclusion undergone by prisoners in closed cells, 
and distinguishes that system from a practice ob- 
taining in local prisons of setting prisoners to 
work separately in their cells with open doors 
(when it is impossible to find them work in asso- 
ciation). 

Solitary, or closed-cell, confinement — ^that is 
to say, complete seclusion every day for nearly 

120 



PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT 

twenty-three hours out of twenty-four — is now, 
sir, as you, but not all men, know, endured by 
every convict (persons sentenced to penal servi- 
tude for three years and over) during the first 
three, six, or nine months of his sentence, accord- 
ing to class — star, intermediate, or recidivist, — 
and for the first month of their sentence by aU 
prisoners (except juveniles) sentenced to hard 
labour. Closed-cell confinement for women con- 
victs lasts four months. 

It is the object of this letter to urge on you the 
complete abandonment of this closed-cell confine- 
ment, save where it is rendered necessary by the 
conduct of the convict or prisoner after his arrival 
in prison. 

In order to demonstrate the weakness of the 
case for its retention, I shall first quote certain 
paragraphs from the Report of the Departmental 
Committee, 1895, over which you, sir, presided. 
(The italics are my own.) 

52. We do not agree with the view that separate 
confinement is desirable, on the ground that it enables 
the prisoner to meditate on his misdeeds. We are, how- 
ever, disposed to agree that the separate system as a gen- 
eral principle is the right policy. The separate system 
rests on two considerations only. It is a deterrent, and 
it is a necessary safeguard against contamination. But 
we are not of the opinion that association for industrial 

121 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

labour under proper conditions is productive of harm. On 
the contrary, we believe that the advantages largely out- 
weigh the disadvantages. . . . Subject to this condi- 
tion (careful supervision) and to a proper system of 
classification, Colonel Garsia, a prison ojSicial of great 
experience, stated in his evidence that there was no dan- 
ger whatever in associated work. . . . 

53. ... We think that this limited form of asso- 
ciation is desirable for several reasons. (1) It is a wel- 
come relief to most prisoners from the dull and weary- 
ing monotony of the constant isolation which forces men 
back on themselves, and in many cases leads to moral and 
physical deterioration. (2) It can be made in the nature 
of a privilege liable to suspension, and would be, there- 
fore, a satisfactory addition to the best kind of available 
punishment. (3) It materially lessens the difficulty of 
providing and organising industrial labour in prisons. 
Prisoners can be taught trades in classes, and they can 
then work in association under proper and economical 
supervision in regular workshops or halls provided for 
the purpose. (4) It is more healthy. It is desirable that 
cells should he untenanted for some hours in the day, and in 
any case it is better that work which produces dust 
should not be carried on in the cells. 

55. In recommending a wider adoption of associ- 
ated work, we must admit that several competent wit- 
nesses expressed disapproval of the principle. . . . But 
upon cross-examination, it did not appear that they could 
sustain their objection to associated labour properly super- 
vised, and they seemed to u^ to have formed their opinion 
rather because separation has been the accepted rule of the 
prison system than on any experience of failure of the asso- 
ciated system. ... 

122 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

76. In the consideration of several matters con- 
tained in the reference, we had to touch upon the practice 
of confining convicts for nine months* (now, 1909, three, 
six, or nine) soUtary imprisonment either in local or con- 
vict prisons. . . . The history of it is interesting and 
suggestive. It was originated in 1842 by Sir James 
Graham, then home secretary. , . . We shall show how 
complete a change in the apparent object of the practice 
has since occurred 

77. ... The convict was to undergo eighteen 
months' solitary imprisonment, but he was to be freely 
visited by chaplain and prison officials ... he was to be 
kept in a state of cheerfulness; hope, energy, resolution, 
and virtue were to be imparted to him, and he was to be 
trained to be fully competent to make his own way and 
become a respectable member in the penal settlements. 

78. In 1848 it was determined that, eighteen months 
being too long a period for isolated confinement, a sys- 
tem should be introduced based on a period of separate 
confinement, followed by a term of associated labour, 
with a maximum of twelve months. This was reduced 
by Lord Palmerston in 1853 to nine months. The orig- 
inal intention of Sir J. Graham, which was that this period 
should be primarily of a reformatory character, appears 
fifteen years later to have been lost sight of. , , , 

79. It would appear from Sir J. Jebb's evidence in 
1863 that the main object of the separate (solitary) con- 
finement had come to be deterrence. . . . 

80. In effect, this is the purpose which it must be re- 
garded as now designed to serve. ... It is certainly a 
practical convenience in the sense that the expense of 
sending convicts immediately after sentence to convict 

123 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

prisons, either singly or in small detachments, is cur- 
tailed by the system of gathering prisons. This consid- 
eration alone is not sufficient to justify the practice. The 
argument that it is a necessary discipline for penal servi- 
tude, if true, is no argument for sending the convicts to 
local prisons. We do not regard the system with favour. 
We see no objection to short periods of detention in local 
prisons for the purpose of collecting parties for transfer 
to the convict prisons; but if the system is a good one at 
all, we think it ought, as far as possible, to be worked 
out in the convict prisons from first to last. We think it 
cannot be denied th&i cases occur in which a nervous condi- 
tion, agitated by remorse and by a long continuance of the 
separate system, may be injuriously affected by it. From 
the evidence before us we have no reason to believe that 
such cases are of other than exceptional occurrence. We 
think it is worth considering whether the severity of the 
system might not be mitigated by a substantial reduction in 
the period of separation. . . . 

These, sir, were the conclusions of your Com- 
mittee as far back as 1895. I submit that, as a 
whole, they point to the existence of very, grave 
doubts in the minds of its members as to the wis- 
dom of retaining this system of closed-cell con- 
finement at all. Since then great strides have 
been made in the direction of the classification 
of prisoners, and of associated labour, and the 
whole slow trend of thought and effort in regard 
to prisons has been in the direction of reforma- 
tion of the prisoner. 

124 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

The late Sir Edmund Du Cane, though one of 
its chief supporters, has called solitary confine- 
ment . . . "an artificial state of existence abso- 
lutely opposed to that which nature points out as the 
condition of mental, moral, and physical health. 
. . ." ("The Pimishment and Prevention of 
Crime/' p. 158.) Its effect on a highly strung 
temperament is thus described by a young woman 
who had served a long term of penal servitude. 
. . . "It is like nothing else in the world — it is 
impossible to describe it; no words can paint its 
miseries, nothing that I can say would give any 
idea of the horrors of solitary confinement — it 
maddens one even to think of it. No one who has 
not been through it can conceive the awful an- 
guish one endures when shut up in a living tomb, 
thrown back upon yourself. . . . The over- 
powering sensation is one of suffocation. You 
feel you must and can smash the walls, burst 
open the doors, kill yourself !...'' 

Add to this Sir Robert Anderson's description 
of his sensations {XlXth Century ^ March, 1902), 
after he had caused himself to be locked up for 
only a few hours with a political prisoner. "I 
seemed to be in a pit. There was no want of air, 
and yet I felt smothered. My nerves would not 
have long stood the strain of it." 

This is the conclusion from personal experi- 
125 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

ence, of H. B. Montgomery: "The whole of this 
procedure '^ (soHtary confinement) "is cruel and 
barbarous, unworthy of a humane or civilised na- 
tion. To my knowledge, it drives many men 
mad, and even when it does not induce lunacy, 
mentally affects a large proportion of those sub- 
jected to it . . ." and: "The less a prisoner is 
thrown in on himseK and the more he is encour- 
aged to foster his home ties, the less likely is he 
to descend into that condition of despair and de- 
moralisation which are such potent factors in 
driving men to perdition." 

These are the words of Colonel Baker, of the 
Salvation Army, before your Departmental Com- 
mittee of 1895: "As to convicts on discharge, I 
should like to say that we find a great number of 
them incapable of pursuing any ordinary occupa- 
tion. They are mentally weak and wasted, requir- 
ing careful treatment for months after they have 
been received by us. In several cases they are 
men who are only fit to be sent off home or to a 
hospital.'^ 

These, after personal experience, are the com- 
ments of W. B. N. in his moderate, and stoical, 
book, "Penal Servitude": 

. . . but, at the best, the system of "separate con- 
finement *' is a very bad one. It is only solitary confine- 

126 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

merit slightly improved, and it has some of the worst 
effects of that terrible punishment. The intention of it, 
doubtless, is to impress the prisoner with the gravity of 
his offence against society, and to bring him to a better 
state of mind. But in some cases, I am convinced, it 
has quite the opposite result. The solitude and the hope- 
less monotony, with nothing to think of but the long 
years of suffering and disgrace ahead, produces nervous 
irritation approaching, in some cases, to frenzy, and in- 
stead of softening the man brings out all the evil there is 
in him. Under such conditions, the worst companions 
he could have are his own thoughts. In men of a dif- 
ferent temperament, again, it deadens all sensibility, so 
that they do not care a straw what happens afterward, 
but would just as soon become habitual criminals as not. 
It is this sullen hatred of themselves and of everybody 
else engendered and fostered during the long dismal 
months of separate confinement that makes the most 
dangerous and troublesome prisoners at a later stage. 
There is a third class, who, having no criminal instincts, 
nor any strong instincts at all, merely give way mentally, 
without any acute distress, and become little better than 
half-witted by the time their separate confinement is at 
an end. . . . 



These are the remarks of Professor Prins, In- 
spector-General of Belgian prisons: "Solitude 
produces in him (the vacuous-minded, erratic, and 
animal person who is usually the criminal) no in- 
tellectual activity and no searching of conscience; 
it serves to deepen his mental vacuity and to de- 

127 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

liver him over to unnatural indulgence in the one 
animal appetite of which he cannot be deprived.'' 
(^'The Criminal" Havelock Ellis, p. 328.) 

Beltrani-Scalia, formerly Inspector-General of 
Prisons in Italy, is of the same opinion, and re- 
marks that "the cellular system looks upon man 
as a brother of La Trappe." ("The Criminal/' 
p. 329.) 

The following passage, taken from Prince Kro- 
potkin's "Memoirs of a Revolutionist," refers to 
a peasant^, confined solitarily in a cell beneath 
him in the Fortress of Peter and Paul, and with 
whom he and his neighbour could communicate by 
knocking. "Soon I began to notice, to my ter- 
ror, that from time to time his mind wandered. 
Gradually his thoughts became more and more 
confused and we two perceived, step by step, day 
by day, evidences that his reason was failing, until 
his talk became at last that of a lunatic. Fright- 
ful noises and wild cries came next from the lower 
story; our neighbour was mad. ... To wit- 
ness the destmction of a man's mind under such 
conditions was terrible." 

Finally: This is the judgment of the rector of 
St. Marylebone, Doctor W. D. Morrison (after 
more than ten years' experience as prison chap- 
lain): "It tends to have a demoralising effect 
upon many classes of prisoners." 

128 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

Such evidence might be multiplied indefinitely. 

Now, sir, in regard to the object of solitary con- 
finement we have surely no need to go behind the 
finding of your Committee: 

"It would appear that the main object of the 
separate" (closed-cell) "confinement had come 
to be deterrence. ... In effect this is the pur- 
pose which it must be regarded as now designed 
to serve. '^ 

In regard to its nature, we have, as surely, no 
need of other description than its supporter's, 
the late Sir Edmimd Du Cane's: "An artificial 
state of existence absolutely opposed to that 
which nature points out as the condition of men- 
tal, moral, and physical health.'' 

The questions arising, then, are two: 

(a) Is this practice of solitary confinement, in 
fact, deterrent? 

(6) Has a civilised nation the right to retain 
offenders for months in a state of existence abso- 
lutely opposed to mental, moral, and physical 
health, even for the purpose of deterrence ? 

As to question (a): No support can be gath- 
ered for the plea of deterrence from the statistics 
of penal servitude; mere severity of punishment 
has never been proved to be a factor of deter- 
rence. When men were hung for horse or sheep 
stealing those offences were far more prevalent 

129 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

than they are now. Moreover the nature of 
their coming punishment is too vaguely known 
to those who have never been in prison for the 
thought of sohtary confinement to have any de- 
terrent effect on ninety-nine out of a hundred 
first offenders. Indeed, that it is not sufficiently 
present to any man^s mind is afforded by the 
fact that so humane a public as our own knows 
and thinks so little about the suffering of solitary 
confinement as to have allowed it to remain part 
of their prison system. 

The effect of a period of solitary confinement 
which comes at the beginning of long years of im- 
prisonment is inevitably wiped out by the mo- 
notony of the prison life which follows. Mechan- 
ical adjustment to environment is always going 
on in the human being. Solitary confinement is 
a smothering process to which the mind must 
adapt itself, or perish. The mental demoralisa- 
tion remains after the confinement comes to an 
end, but the consciousness of that mental ruin, 
the consciousness of the suffering, has become 
dulled; from his closed cell the convict passes on 
to the ordinary prison life, actually unable to 
appreciate the extent of the misery he has under- 
gone. Obviously, moreover, deterrence (if there 
be deterrence) paid for by mental and moral 
weakening is not true deterrence; Jot the acquired 

130 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

jpcnjoer of resistance to crime, if any, is nullified 
through deterioration of the prisoner's fibre. 

The true deterrence of imprisonment lies in 
the general fear of loss of liberty; in that night- 
mare of a thought; aU details of impending pun- 
ishment (even if known) mechanically merge. 

This solitary confinement, however, is some- 
times justified on the ground that it is necessary 
to buoy the convict up with hope. It is thought 
that by placing him at the outset in the seventh 
hell of pain we lessen his sufferings in the minor 
hells which await him at the expiration of those 
first dire months. That, sir, is humanity with a 
vengeance. Imagine this principle logically ap- 
plied to social life. The husband would beat the 
wife that she might not so greatly feel the inevi- 
table wear and tear of matrimony; the mother 
would starve the child that it might experience 
with more equanimity the ordinary pangs of 
hunger. The master would withhold wages that 
the servant might more duly appreciate the re- 
ceipt of what was due to him. It appears, in- 
deed, to be almost what is called a vicious 
principle. 

To question (6), Whether a civilised coimtry 
has the right to retain its offenders in a state of 
existence absolutely opposed to mental, moral, 
and physical health, even for the sake of a sup- 

131 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

posed deterrence — I conceive, sir, but this one 
answer: Only so long as we do not realise what 
this solitary confinement of convicts means. 

Six months (to take the mean sentence) is a 
short time to a free man; it is an eternity to a 
prisoner confined in solitude. One hundred and 
eighty days — ^four thousand hours, of solitude 
and silence in a cell, which — ^in the words of Sir 
Robert Anderson (XlXth Century, March, 1902) 
— "differs from every other sort of apartment 
designed for human habitation, in that all view 
of external nature, such as might soothe, and pos- 
sibly alleviate, the mind, is, with elaborate care, 
excluded'^ — solitude broken only by one hour a 
day, of chapel, and walking up and down a yard; 
by the sight of a warder, three times or so a day, 
bringing in food; by a ten minutes' visit perhaps 
from chaplain or governor. 

Four thousand hours of utter solitude in a closed 
space thirteen feet by seven — ^with the prospect 
of anything from two to twenty years of monoto- 
nous routine and loss of liberty to follow ! Can a 
Public Opinion, which succeeds in bringing these 
facts home to its imagination, justly say that 
two and a half to twenty years of loss of Hberty, 
with all that this means in prison, is not sufficient 
punishment for any crime that man can commit, 
without the preliminary agony of four thousand 

132 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

hours of solitude in a closed space thirteen feet 
by seven? 

Sir, Public Opinion has never yet succeeded in 
realising what this so-called separate confinement 
means. In the year ending March, 1907, we set 
1,035 persons, of whom 691 had never been sen- 
tenced to penal servitude before, to endure these 
hoiu-s of agony and demoralisation. In the year 
ending March, 1908, we set another 1,179 to en- 
dure the same, 749 of them for the first time. 
At the present moment, another thousand, more 
or less, are undergoing it. 

In thus subjecting year by year a thousand 
persons to nine, six, or three months of an "arti- 
ficial state of existence absolutely opposed to 
that which nature points out as the condition of 
mental, moral, and physical health,'^ we are an- 
nually committing an offence against our reason, 
of which we reap the fuU reward in the mental, 
moral, and physical deterioration of persons al- 
ready demoralised enough; and an offence against 
our humanity in reality as great as if we had 
placed them on the rack. 

I by no means lose sight, sir, of the fact that 
this closed-cell confinement falls with different 
effect on different temperaments; it falls, no 
doubt, far less heavily on the sluggish and the bru- 
tahsed than on the nervous types, of which, how- 

133 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

ever, we are now breeding great numbers. But, 
sir, even the habitual criminal — popularly sup- 
posed to dread flogging more than anjrthing — ^has 
been known while enduring solitary confinement 
to beg for the lash in place of it. Sir J. Jebb, giv- 
ing evidence before the Penal Servitude Acts 
Commission in 1863, uses these words: "With 
burglars and reckless characters I think that 
separate confinement is dreaded more than any 
other kind of discipline." And in regard to other 
effects on the habitual criminal, the words of Pro- 
fessor Prins, above quoted, are significant. The 
sluggish brutaHty of many recidivists is produced 
in the first place by this very process of closed- 
cell confinement. Man, even the lowest type of 
man, is a social and gregarious animal — all that 
is best in him depends on, and is brought out by 
contact with his fellow creatures; if that be not 
so, our religion and whole social scheme are falsely 
conceived. Deprive man of all contact with his 
fellow man, shut him in upon himself, hopelessly, 
utterly, month by month, and he will come out 
of that artificial existence lower and more brutal 
than when he entered it. Prolonged starvation 
and agony of the mind is worse than starvation 
and agony of the body, carrying, as it does, the 
wreck of the body with it. 
We have the right to restrain offenders and to 
134 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

safeguard society; in doing this we unavoidably 
punish with that abeady terrible punishment, 
"loss of liberty.'^ But, sir, we have — surely — not 
the right to inflict unnecessary and harmful suf- 
fering. 1 recognise to the full that there is no 
lack of humanity among those who work our 
prison system; recognise to the full that they 
would not wilhngly inflict any suffering that they 
acknowledged to be unnecessary; but in every 
department of life, those who administer a system 
are, in the nature of things, with rare exceptions, 
too habituated to that system, too close to it, 
to be able to see it in due perspective. 

I ask you, sir, and I ask the common sense of 
the public, whether harmful and unnecessary 
suffering must not inevitably be endured by the 
mind, and through the mind by the body, of a 
human being, diu-ing these thousands of hours of 
closed-cell confinement. To answer that ques- 
tion fairly, each member of the public has but to 
ask what would be the effect on himself or her- 
self of nine or six or even three months' utter 
seclusion (except for one hoiu- each day) from all 
sight and sound not only of human beings, but of 
animals, trees, flowers, and from the sight even 
of the sky, all but a patch no bigger than a tea- 
tray. We are on the whole a himiane people; and 
it is not so much a question of our humanity as 

135 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

of our imaginations. The position is plainly 
this: Those who have to work our prison sys- 
tem, perhaps could not do so at all if they allowed 
their imaginations fair play. The community are 
too aloof to realise what that prison system means. 
And SO; sir, the imnecessary demoralisation and 
suffering caused by this closed-cell confinement 
goes on at the rate of (for convicts alone) more 
than 4,000,000 hours a year ! 

I do not base the appeal of this letter so much 
on humanity as on common sense. Why, when 
we are faced with appalling statistics of criminal- 
ity, with appaUing difficulties in dealing with, 
and reforming criminals, do we deliberately con- 
tinue a practice which both evidence and reason 
tell us, contributes to the more complete demoral- 
isation of such as are already demoralised? 

In the report of your Departmental Committee 
of 1895 occur these words: '^It should be the ob- 
ject of the prison authorities through the prison 
staff and any suitable auxiliary effort that can 
be employed, to humanise the prisoners, to pre- 
vent them from feeling that the State merely 
chains them for a certain period and cares noth- 
ing about them beyond keeping them in safe 
custody and under iron discipline/' 

And again: ". . . it strengthens our belief 
that the main fault of our prison system is that 

136 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

it treats prisoners too much as irreclaimable crim- 
inals, instead of reclaimable men and women.'' 

I submit that no unprejudiced man can regard 
this closed-cell confinement as a himianising in- 
fluence, except in the rarest cases, or maintain 
that it helps to reclaim men and women. 

I refer again to this paragraph in the report of 
your Committee: "It" (the detention of convicts 
in closed-cell confinement at local prisons) "is 
certainly a practical convenience in the sense 
that the expense of sending convicts immediately 
after sentence to convict prisons, either singly 
or in detachments, is curtailed by the system of 
gathering prisons. This consideration alone is not 
sufficient to justify the practice.^* 

I am credibly informed that the whole matter 
is one of administration, and can be modified 
without Act of Parliament. I appeal, then, to 
you, sir, who have already done so much toward 
reforming our prison system, to work for the 
abandonment of this custom of confining con- 
victs in closed cells for nine, six, or three months, 
or any less period, either in local, or in convict 
prisons; to substitute therefor work in associa- 
tion from the commencement of sentence; or, 
where such is not immediately possible, work 
in separate cells with open doors. And I would 
further appeal to you to advocate the reduction 

137 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

of the twenty-eight days' closed-cell confinement 
endured by prisoners serving sentences of hard 
labour. 

Than this great and necessary reform; I can 
conceive none that will, at a single stroke, re- 
move so much harmful and unnecessary suffer- 
ing, or do more to reconcile our penal laws with 
justice and common sense. 

(2) 

(From a Letter to Sir Evelyn Ruggles Brise, K.C.B., Prison 
Commission, Whitehall, July, 1909) 

"... I was at X Prison on Tuesday, at 

V Prison yesterday — saw all the officials, 



and talked with twelve convicts. ... It was 

suggested to me at X that I ought to stay 

some days there and see every convict. I would 
be willing, if you will allow me, to stay some days 
at X Prison, see every convict, and keep re- 
cord of the answers obtained from each one as 
to the effect on him of separate confinement. I 
think they would speak to me freely. From all I 
hear and certainly from its situation and general 

airiness and lightness, X Prison is the best 

of the four collecting prisons, and there would be 
no danger of getting an impression more unfa- 
vourable to separate confinement than I should 
get from seeing each convict in all four prisons. 

138 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

"An expression used during our conversation 
the other day leads me for a moment into the 
deeper and wider significance of this question- 
It was the expression ' a downright enemy of soci- 
ety' used of a certain class of prisoner. I have 
been thinking over that phrase 'a downright 
enemy of society' to see if one more meditation 
on it would correct the conclusions of a hundred 
previous meditations, but I do not feel that it has. 
I think of it like this: Every now and then, sel- 
dom enough but still too frequently, we come 
across children, in all classes, who, from the age 
when they begin to act at aU, show that there is 
something in them warped, distorted, inherently 
inimical to goodness. It is in them, of them, a 
taint in their blood, a lesion of their brain. They 
grow up. They are not insane, but they have a 
bhnd spot, a place in their souls or internal 
economy — or whatever you like to call it — ^that 
some mysterious, rather awful, hand has dark- 
ened. They are doomed from their birth by rea- 
son of that blind spot sooner or later to become 
criminals, that is, to commit some action which is 
not consonant with the actions of those who are 
born without this bHnd spot; some are not foimd 
out; some are. When foxmd out they are known 
as *the criminal type.' They form a portion, not 
perhaps a very large one, of our convicts. Can 

139 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

those, who have had the good fortune to be born 
Hke their fellows, punish these unfortunates Jor 
the sake of ^punishing them, for the sake of aveng- 
ing society? I cannot bring myself to think so. 

''These are not, however, the bulk of our con- 
victs. The greater part of them are those who 
are born more or less normal, but with what is 
called a weak character.* I don't know if you 
have ever been much among those classes which 
supply the vast proportion of our criminals; if 
you have, you will recognise, as I do, what a won- 
derful thing it is that so small a proportion of 
them become criminals. You will have seen the 
very dreadful struggle they have against luck 
from the time when they begin to know any- 
thing. You will feel, as I do, that keeping their 
heads above water is, and must be, touch and go 
with them from day to day; theyVe just a plank 
between them and going down, and a very little 
extra sea (it runs high all the time) tips that 
plank over. Many of them are bred in slums and 
garrets where the only real god is Drink. When 
they go under, they are suddenly up against the 
most inexorable thing in life. Law and Order, to 
whose mercilessness every citizen subscribes in 
self-defence, whether he will or no. When they 

* CriminaKty, I now think, is as often the result of too strong 
a character, or rather of too much unbalanced self-will. — J. G. 

140 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

have paid their debt to Law, they emerge into 
the same conditions against which they were too 
weak by natm-e to stand up before, with the one 
weapon they had, character, either gone, or 
gravely damaged. It is not remarkable that they 
go down again, and then again, and so on, imtil 
they become ^enemies of society/ 

"It seems to me that gentlemen (I speak in the 
spirit), holding as their creed the duty of putting 
themselves in the place of others, cannot recon- 
cile it with that creed to punish for the mere sake 
of punishing those whose chances in life have been 
so vastly inferior to their own. 

"These general considerations must be plati- 
tudes to you, and I feel that you do not, any 
more than I, believe in punishment as a means of 
revenging society, but merely as a means of pro- 
tecting society by restraining and trying to re- 
form the offender. Society (I speak in the widest 
sense of heredity and environment) makes the 
offender; it can restrain, but it cannot with jus- 
tice exact vengeance from the victims of its own 
shortcomings. 

"All hope of real diminution in crime and crim- 
inals (in default of better social conditions) de- 
pends, in my belief, not on the infliction of 'de- 
terrent suffering' in prisons, but first, on the 
extension of probation, and your splendid Bor- 

141 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

stal system; secondly, on abolition of tickets of 
leave/ and that vicious principle of not having 
done with the offence when you have paid the 
penalty for it; thirdly, on a moderate, humane, 
and reformatory use of the principle of detention 
of the hopeless recidivist; fourthly, on the in- 
crease of humanising influences brought to bear 
on prisoners in prison. I give full weight to the 
necessity for not making prison hfe a treat, and 
to the consideration that what would be hell to 
us may be comparative ease to the habitual 
criminal; but I think that with 'closed-cell^ con- 
finement abolished, we might still make our 
minds easy. The man who will come back to 
prison life from choice, so long as he can get his 
bread in freedom, does not exist; the cumula- 
tive force of hard and regular work, of silence, of 
no tobacco, of no drink, of no knowledge of what 
is going on outside, of being ordered about from 
morning to night, of being a number, not a man, 
of losing all touch with his family and friends, 
above all, of utter monotony, of the sense at the 
best of being in school, at the worst of being in 
slavery, of the feeling of having whole years 
sponged out of his life (for a man does not live 
in prison), may not be easy to grasp for those 
who hve in liberty themselves, but it is none the 
less tremendous. 

142 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

"It is perhaps superfluous to remind you, who 
for so many years have been fighting for and 
achieving reforms, of what a queer, hypnotising 
influence 'things as they are^ — ^in fact, the exist- 
ing system has on the minds of those who are 
constantly confronted with it; and to beg you 
for that reason to take due discount from the 
evidence of those who are necessarily under that 
hypnotic influence; just as no doubt you will, 
without my begging you, take discount from my 
appeal on the ground that I am an outsider. 

''.I can't close this letter without saying that 
it's impossible to go over our prisons and not see 
that the country has in yourself a great reform- 
ing administrator; I shall consider it a rare piece 
of good fortune if any words of mine help to 
bring about in your mind the belief that this 
particular feature of our prison system, closed- 
cell confinement, requires immediate mitigation 
and ultimate elimination, except in individual 
cases. . . .'' 



143 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

(3) 

A Minute on Separate Confinement, For- 
warded TO THE Home Secretary and the 
Prison Commissioners, September, 1909 

(Compiled from visits paid to sixty convicts undergoing sepa- 
rate confinement in X and Y Prisons. July and 

September, 1909) 

By the courtesy of the Prison Commissioners, 
to whom my thanks are due, I visited these con- 
victs in their cells, and conversed privately with 
each one of them for from ten minutes to a quar- 
ter of an hour. I put certain definite questions 
to each in regard to the effect of separate con- 
finement on themselves, and, so far as they could 
tell me, on other prisoners, prefacing each conver- 
sation by the information that I was in no way 
connected with the prison authorities. My ob- 
ject in the course of these conversations was to 
get behind the formal question and answer, to 
the man's real feelings. I met with no hostility, 
defiance, or conscious evasion in any single case. 
In some cases a word or two was sufficient to 
bring a rush of emotion. Several men were in 
tears throughout the interview. In the major- 
ity of cases, however, I found it difficult to get 
the prisoners to express themselves; and in some 
cases formal answers, stolidly given, were re- 
versed by some sudden revelation of feeling 

144 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

evoked, as it were, in spite of the prisoner's self. 
Generally speaking, I judged that feehngs were 
understated rather than overstated. 
The summary of these interviews is as follows: 



Sixty Convicts Interviewed. 



Of these: 



Eight preferred separate confinement to work- ] 

of [ 



ing in association, and were not conscious 



Category 
A, 



Category 
B. 



harmful effect. 
Fifteen would prefer work in association, but 

(1) Having suffered from their separate con- 
finement, had got more or less used to 
it. (Three cases.) 

(2) Were suffering, but thought it was good 
for them. (Three cases.) 

(3) Were so incapable of expressing their ex- 
periences, that no definite answer could 
be got from them. (Nine cases.) 

Thirty-seven preferred association; suffered 
severely from separate confinement; and as- 
serted that they had been harmed; that all 
prisoners were , harmed, and some driven 
crazy. . . . 
Of the eight convicts in Category A who preferred 

separate: 

Four were educated men (three of whom asserted a nat- 
ural preference for their own society, in or out of 
prison). 

One was an old recidivist with five sentences of penal 
servitude. 

U5^ 



Category 
C. 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

Two (of a callous type) preferred separate confinement 
because they had no temptation to talk and get into 
trouble. 

One was the only prisoner I saw who said he had deliber- 
ately committed his offence in order to get into prison. 

The following phrases taken from notes made 
immediately after each interview indicate the gen- 
eral natm-e of the suffering experienced by pris- 
oners separately confined. 

"I used to look up at the window, and something 
seemed to pull me back." 

"The first month was awful, I didn't hardly know how 
to keep myself together. I thought I should go mad." 

"It's made me very nervous, the least thing upsets me 
— ^I was not nervous before." 

"IVe got a daughter, and I grieve over her all the time 
— there's nothing to take your mind off." 

"I've never felt right since — it's got all over me." 
(This man cried all the time. He seemed utterly im- 
nerved, and broken up. A Star Class man.) 

"I feel it dreadfully. It gets worse as it goes on." 

"It's no life at all. I'd sooner be dead than here." 
(This man was very tearful and quavery.) 

"My first spell of 'separate' nearly drove me raving." 
(This was a recidivist serving his third term.) 

"It broke me down on my first sentence. It destroys 
a man." 

"I had a cold lonely feeling. . . . Nine months of it 
is killing for most men." 

146 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

"It's punishment to shut up a man for nine months." 
(This is a fair specimen of the very general understate- 
ment of evidently acute feelings.) 

"It'll send men *up the stick.'" (OS their heads.) 

"I'm very miserable and down-'earted. You feel it 
more and more as you get older. I hardly know some- 
times what I'm doing." (This was from an old man of 
61, who had been twenty years in prison, and said he did 
not expect to last through this sentence. He had still 
six months of separate to run, and struck me as very broken 
up, and suffering.) 

"I keep 'picturing' things, and walking about. It 
sends men ' up the pole.' " (Another bad case of a young 
recidivist of 29, with five months of his * separate ' still 
to run.) 

"Walls seem to close in. . . . I get blankness in the 
brain — ^have to stop reading." 

"It's hell upon earth." (An educated prisoner.) 

"Almost unbearable depression." (An educated pris- 
oner.) 

"Sleep's the only comfort." 

" I sit there sometimes at work, not knowing what I'm 
doing." 

"I've good nerves. A man with bad nerves would 
soon snuff out in ' separate.' " 

" If a man had the spy hole open even, so that he could 
see out, it would make a vast of difference. . . . I've 
seen numbers of men come on the public works from their 
'separate,' quite silly." 

"I've seen many a man driven queer." (This recidi- 
vist had served four terms of penal servitude.) 

" I've seen men driven off their nuts." 
147 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

I could not get an admission from any prisoner 
that the suffering they underwent in separate 
confinement deterred them from coming back to 
prison. The two reasons they assigned for com- 
ing back to prison were: 

(1) That they had so Httle chance outside. 

(2) Drink. 

It is obvious, however, that the separate pe- 
riod is ahnost universally regarded as much the 
worst part of the sentence. 

My reasons for believing that — ^in spite of this 
— separate confinement is not, in fact, deter- 
rent, were given in my open letter to the home 
secretary (The Nation, May 1 and May 8, 
1909); this belief has been strengthened rather 
than weakened in the course of this investiga- 
tion. As a final result of these visits, I record 
my dehberate conviction that no competent 
observer with any knack of getting at men's 
feelings, and the opportimity of conversing in 
private and as a private person, with the prison- 
ers, could come to any other conclusion than 
that an immense amount of harmful and un- 
necessary suffering is inflicted by closed-ceU con- 
finement extending over the periods (especially 
the longer periods) now prevailing. It is my 
belief that if the authorities were able to adopt 
this method of getting at the real state of the 

148 



SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 

case, the system would not remain unaltered for 
a single day. 

(4) 

(From a Letter to the Home Secretary, the Right Honourable 
Herbert John Gladstone, M. P., October, 1909) 

. . . "Every day that passes with this ques- 
tion undealt with means so many thousand hours 
of soHd, tangible, harmful, removable misery. 
There is a distinction between this particular 
kind of misery and any other experienced by 
man in a state of society such as we now have in 
England. There is no other form of acute, jyro- 
longed misery enforced on people in such a way 
as that they can by no possibility avoid it. The 
old sajdng: 'He deserves all he'll get and more/ 
stultifies itself the moment it is looked into; the 
plea of deterrence does not hold water; and this 
misery stands out stark — a survival from the phi- 
losophy (!) of the dark ages. . . J^ 

Note. — Solitary or separate confinement for convicts has been 
reduced from nine, six, and three months to three months for 
'old hands,' and one month for the other two classes of convicts. 
But the writer feels as strongly as ever that, except in special 
cases, it should be done away with altogether. — J. G. 



149 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 



II 



THE SPIRIT OF PUNISHMENT 

(An article in the Daily Chronicle, 1910) 

In the matter of our administration of justice 
there is a very simple question to be asked by 
every man of his own conscience: What do I 
beheve is the object of punishment? Until this 
question has been asked and coherently an- 
swered by the community, it is obviously as mad 
to apply punishment as for a man to set out to 
dine with a friend of whose address he has no 
knowledge. But by how many people has this 
question been asked; by how many has it been 
coherently answered? 

The whole administration of our justice at 
present treads the quicksands of ambiguity as 
to the object of punishment. The vast major- 
ity of us have never put to ourselves the ques- 
tion at aU, being quite satisfied that the object 
of punishment is to "serve people right"; and 
out of the small minority who have asked the 
question the far greater number have given them- 
selves no coherent answer. And yet it is only 
from a coherent and wise answer, graven in let- 
ters of stone on our law courts and prisons, in 
letters of feeling in our hearts, that hope of 

150 



PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT 

diminution in crime; and in the damage which 
arises from it, both to the community and to the 
offender, can come. 

Now, whatever sentimental relation there be 
between punishment and our deep instincts of 
equity, the object of punishment is the protection 
of society and the reformation of the offender. That 
is the only safe rule in practice; and everything 
in our administration of justice which conflicts 
with it is falsely conceived. But it is the com- 
monest thing in the world for people to accept 
that definition without considering in the least 
what it means; for experts, after thoroughly 
agreeing with it, to suddenly remark that for 
such and such a crime they, personally, would 
have no mercy; for sentences to be passed in 
which the judge has obviously fitted the pun- 
ishment to his private views of the heinousness 
of the crime, without real regard for the protec- 
tion of society, or for the reformation of the 
person sentenced. AU which is extremely nat- 
ural and very bad. 

The confusion arises from not keeping the 
idea of the protection of society closely enough 
coupled with the idea of the reformation of the 
offender; from dwelling too much on the past, 
and not looking enough to the future; from the 
continued existence of the old theory, "an eye 

151 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

for an eye/^ condemned to death over nineteen 
hundred years ago, but still dying very hard in 
this Christian country. 

The protection of society includes the adjust- 
ment of punishment so as not to leave on the 
mind of the injured person a crude sense of injury 
unhealed by retribution. It includes the removal 
from individuals of the desire to take the law 
into their own hands. It is necessary to preserve 
in pimishment a due element of deterrence. The 
State and those who administer its functions have 
no business with anything but the scientific appli- 
cation of the best means to do all this, and reform 
the offender. 

Yet in the glibbest way that golden rule, "pro- 
tection of society and reformation of the of- 
fender,'' is cited to cover all the flaws in our ad- 
ministration of justice. 

In its name men are prosecuted, when with 
better comprehension they should be warned or 
helped. 

In its name first offenders are imprisoned, 
when with better comprehension the imprison- 
ment of first offenders , of whatever age, for what- 
ever offence, should be unknown; a much greater 
danger to society arises, and infinitely less chance 
of reforming the delinquent exists, when that de- 
linquent has once been committed to prison. Place 

152 



PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT 

him on probation, or send him to a reformatory- 
institution such as Borstal, for whatever fixed 
period may seem necessary — ^but to a prison, as 
prisons now are, never! To send him there is 
fatal, hopeless, uneconomic, unscientific. 

In its name, the continuance of closed-cell 
confinement is defended; and we endeavour to 
reform men by consigning them to the opera- 
tion of what, in the words of its stanch sup- 
porter (the late Sir Edmund Du Cane), is "an 
artificial state of existence, absolutely opposed 
to that which nature points out as the condition 
of mental, moral, and physical health/' We 
tiy in fact to protect society by a method that 
does not reform. Many have raised their voices 
against this strange practice since evidence, given 
before the Select Committee on Prison Disci- 
pline, 1850, described closed-ceU confinement as 
dangerous to health and unjust to the prisoner, 
"because it throws him back into society with 
diminished physical ability to encounter the 
variableness of climate, the severity of labour, 
and the pinchings of want, to which as a labourer 
in the market of competition he must ever be 
Hable" . . . ! Yet in the name of the golden 
rule the practice lingers on, helping to rot men 
and women. 

In the name of this golden rule, prisoners 
153 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

working in association are, in our prisons, forced 
into an unnatural silence, for ever furtively 
evaded. Some silence may be good but per- 
petual silence is too unnatural not to defeat 
itself. Classification is the true preventive of 
contamination, not complete separation, nor per- 
petual silence. 

In its name the handicap of the ticket-of- 
leave, now, thank heaven, modified, is placed on 
those who are desperately handicapped already. 

The idea behind these and other practices of 
the administration of our justice is that much 
deterrent suffering is needful for the protection of 
society and the reformation of the offender. But 
those who know human nature know that, ex- 
cept in rare cases, human beings cannot be re- 
formed by suffering infiicted on them against 
their will, and it is no use having a system of 
pimishment beneficial to the few and harmful 
to the majority. The late Lord Coleridge once 
made these remarks: 

There are few things more frequently borne in on a 
judge's mind than the little good he can do the criminal 
by the sentences he imposes. These sentences often do 
nothing but unmixed harm, though I am sure that through- 
out the country the greatest pains are taken to make our 
prisons as useful as possible in the way of being reforma- 
tories. But, as a matter of fact, they are not so. 

154 



PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT 

Greater pains are now taken than when those 
words were spoken, but a man cannot go over 
prisons (I do not speak of the Borstal institu- 
tions) without seeing that they are not, cannot 
he J reformatory. 

Reformation does not come from beating on 
the prisoner's fibre with the dull mallet of suffer- 
ing. To reform one must inspire. There is a 
spark of good in every man's breast; the only 
chance lies in fanning that spark. But if we 
are not reforming men in our prisons, how can 
we be said to be protecting society by sending 
them there? We are surely endangering soci- 
ety and nurturing the spirit of crime. 

The fact of the matter is this: Revenge is still 
at the back of our minds. Let a man argue on 
the subject jvdth whomsoever he will, ten min- 
utes wiU not have passed before he makes that 
discovery. The State still feels that because a 
man has hurt it, it must hurt him. And this 
feeHng destroys all the economy and science of 
our laws. When a crime is committed, all we 
should be concerned with, in our own interests, 
is the application of the best possible means to 
minimise the results of that crime, to insure 
that society shall rmi the least possible risk of a 
repetition of the crime, and the offender the 
least possible risk of remaining a criminal. 

155 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

In doing this we cannot, in very many cases, 
avoid the detention of our criminals; but we 
can, and should, avoid inflicting suffering on 
those whom we detain, beyond the already great 
suffering and deprivation inseparable from dis- 
cipHnary detention, and all that disciplinary de- 
tention implies; for by deliberately superadding 
such sufferings as solitude or perpetual unre- 
lieved silence, we do not to any appreciable de- 
gree deter others from committing offences, and 
we do foster in those whom we imprison the dis- 
position to commit fresh offences when they are 
released. 

That diminution of crime depends, not on de- 
terrent punishment, but on wide and impalpable 
influences — growth of social feeling, spread of 
education, betterment of manners,^ decrease of 
intemperance, improvement in housing, a hundred 
other causes — ^is plain from the official statement 
lately issued. "The members of the predatory 
classes are appreciably fewer than in 1857, in 
spite of the fact that in the interim population 
has almost doubled." And this in the face of 
admittedly milder penal measures! For further 
evidence that mere severity of treatment does 
not deter we need only look at the comparative 
success of the Elmira Reformatory in the United 
States, and the Borstal institutions here. Under 

156 



PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT 

these systems, which allow the offender some 
kind of natural life, the percentage of those who 
return to crime is most notably smaller. 

Crime is disease — if not in the medical, in the 
moral sense of the word. It is either the dis- 
ease of weakness, or of unbalanced self-will, or 
the disease of inherited taint. We have fought 
against this conclusion because we still harbour 
the spirit of revenge; but as knowledge ad- 
vances we shall, we must, accept it. And the 
sooner we do accept it the less money we shall 
waste, the less harmful and unnecessary suffer- 
ing shall we inflict. 

The difficulties of judicial and prison admin- 
istration are enormous, the force of prejudice 
encoimtered by reforming administrators ter- 
rific — all the more terrific because these prej- 
udices, in the main conscientious, are wholly 
reinforced by the fact that change means trouble 
and expense, by fears of making things worse, 
by aU the accumulated momentum of "things 
as they are.^' For a man with any understand- 
ing in his composition it is impossible not to 
sympathise with those who, administering jus- 
tice, earnestly desire to do their best, and are 
often, one is sure, sick at heart from the feeling 
that what they are doing is not the best. 

It rests with public opinion in this country to 
157 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

reanimate our attitude toward crime: to shake 
itself free of our muddled conceptions of the 
object of punishment; to scotch once for all the 
spirit of revenge; to rise to a higher, more scien- 
tific and incidentally more economic, conception 
of om- duty toward criminals. Let us get rid 
of the idea that we are protecting society and 
reforming offenders by inflicting suffering that 
we falsely call deterrent. Let us change our 
prisons into Borstal institutions, and let us do 
it as soon as is humanly possible. Loss of lib- 
erty is, next to loss of life, the most dreaded of 
all fates; it has, in and by itseK, almost all the 
deterrent force that is needful. There may be 
here and there men who prefer to be detained 
imder strict discipline to being at liberty; but if 
there be, it can only be said that the conditions 
of their hves outside prison must constitute a 
disgrace to our civilisation, and that our penal sys- 
tem cannot safely or justly be allowed to rest on 
any acquiescence in that disgrace. In the last 
annual report of the Borstal Association occur 
the following words: "It is not a namby-pamby 
method. . . . The panic-monger who prophe- 
sies that the ambitious youth of the working 
classes will stiU clamour for admission through the 
gateway of crime to the advantages of Borstal, 
would be regarded as a humorist by those who 

158 



PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT 

have been there and 'have had enough and learnt 
sense.' " 

Let us, then, take discipline and loss of lib- 
erty as our sole deterrents, and on those whom 
we deprive of Hberty let us use all the resources 
of a common sense that shall refuse to apply to 
criminals methods which would be scouted in 
the reform of human beings outside prisons. 

All evidence shows that mere, so-called deter- 
rent, severity is useless. Let us no longer fly 
in the face of evidence. Let us conform to facts. 
If we seriously desire to reduce crime to its irre- 
ducible minimum, we must go to work like doc- 
tors. 



Ill 



AN UNPUBLISHED PREFACE 

(Written in 1910) 

It is not my habit to write prefaces, but there 
are certain things I want to say concerning the 
play 'Justice,' as to its subject-matter, not its 
artistic quahties, bad, good, or indifferent. 

Holding perhaps a more intimate knowledge 
of its author's mind than can elsewhere be ob- 
tained, I would remark that the play is no indict- 
ment or attack, but a picture of the whole pro- 
cess of justice as seen by this painter's eye. 

159 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

There are thickenings of line here and thinnings 
there, occasioned by lack of technical knowledge, 
or demanded by the exigencies of dramatic craft, 
but the spiritual essence of the matter is set down 
honestly, as best it could be perceived by him. 

Justice was known by the ancients to be blind; 
by ourselves is admitted blind; will be acclaimed 
blind by the tongues of our descendants. It is 
bhnd because it is depart- or rather compart- 
ment al. 

The prosecutor, be he ancient Roman or Eng- 
Hshman of to-day, cannot gauge or control the 
whole effect on the offender and on society of the 
process which he initiates. The Judge, be he 
Solon or Judge of the High Court, cannot know 
enough of the temperament and antecedents of 
a prisoner to adequately apportion a sentence 
which he cannot see being carried out. The 
prison official is tied to the terms of the sentence 
and the conditions of the system, for some sys- 
tem there must be. The PubHc, on the prisoner's 
release, acts mechanically in its own defence 
against a marked man. AU see only their own 
bits of the game. 

From this general blindness, it follows that 
punishment is almost always out of proportion. 
This is why it seemed to me worth while to make 
a picture of Blind Justice, and to hang it on the 

160 



PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT 

wall. There are some who believe that this pic- 
ture will rapidly become out of date. I am not 
so sanguine. Short of our all becoming not only- 
eager, but able, to see that which does not He 
underneath our noses, I much fear that this pic- 
ture will remain valid for some considerable 
time. The conditions will change, but the spirit 
will remain — ^Justice is too naturally and inevi- 
tably blind. Is that any reason why we should 
nob occasionally be reminded of the fact — one 
of the enduring, but perhaps diminishable, facts 
of human life? Even the administrators of this 
Justice might like now and then to glance at a 
picture of its blindness. 

One word about the cell scene. It has been 
called false and exaggerated. . . . Two brothers 
went to see this play. At the end of the cell 
scene the younger, who stammers, turned to his 
elder and said: "It^s n-not so — ^j-j — oily as all 
that!" 

Precisely! Prisoners do not commonly enjoy 
the relief of beating on their cell doors, though 
the incident is not imknown. But he who can 
project himself into the minds of others, knows 
that prisoners, in closed cells, moping and brood- 
ing week after week, month after month, shut off 
from all real distraction, from all touch with the 
outer world and everything they care for, with 

161 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

the knowledge of years of imprisonment before 
them and of broken hves when they come out — 
knows that such prisoners, thousands of them, 
unseen by any eye, reach a state of mind which 
would make them constantly fling themselves 
for rehef on their cell doors, if it were not for 
fear. No, it is not so jolly as all that ! 

The characteristics of all prison life, at all 
events in England, are silence and sohtude, phys- 
ical or spiritual; and this cell scene was selected 
to convey, as nearly as the limitations of the stage 
permitted, these commonest characteristics of de- 
tention. 

For the truth of this picture of Blind Justice, 
as a whole, I rely on the testimonial of that the- 
atre attendant, employed out of charity, who, 
having been prosecuted, sentenced, imprisoned, 
and released, knew, let us hope, more of the mat- 
ter spiritually, than those who criticise. After 
the play on the first night, to the question of his 
manager: "Well, is it true?" he looked up 
from his sweeping, and said: "Every word of 
it, sir." 

I have only this to add : If each scene is taken 
separately and looked on with a departmentally 
professional eye, it must needs seem out of draw- 
ing, for it was visualised by an eye looking on 
each department only in relation to the whole. 

162 



PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT 

When the professional reader or spectator of 
the Court or Prison scene, says: "Oh! this or 
that is not true ! '' he is criticising from the de- 
partmental, and not from the bird's-eye point 
of view, which an author must needs assimie. 
Even if the sentence be more than typically 
severe, though I doubt that, or the judgment 
not typically worded, they serve well enough as 
illustrations of that blindness which has accom- 
panied the wisest judgments of one human being 
on another since the world began. 

No, the only legitimate criticism which the 
professional reader or spectator can pass is that 
the particular bird's-eye view is wrong. To that 
criticism this bird can make no answer, except to 
say with deference and courtesy that he must be- 
lieve in his own eye — ^for it is all he has to see 
with. 



163 



ON THE POSITION OP WOMEN 



"GENTLES, LET US REST!'' 

(A Paper in The Nation, 1910) 

A man asked to define the essential charac- 
teristics of a gentleman — ^using the term in its 
widest sense — ^would presumably reply: The 
will to put himself in the place of others; the 
horror of forcing others into positions from which 
he himself would recoil; the power to do what 
seems to him right without fear of what others 
may say or think. 

There is need just now of aid from these prin- 
ciples of gentility in a question of some impor- 
tance — ^^the future position of women. 

The ground facts of difference between the 
sexes few are hkely to deny: 

Women are not, and in all probability never 
will be, physically, as strong as men. 

Men are not, nor ever will be, mothers. 

Women are not, and, perhaps, never should be, 
warriors. 

To these ground facts of difference are com- 
164 



POSITION OF WOMEN 

monly added, in argument; many others of more 
debatable character. But it is beside the pur- 
pose of this paper to inquire whether women 
have as much poHtical sense or aptitude as men, 
whether a woman has ever produced a master- 
piece of music, whether the brain of a woman 
ever weighed as much as the brain of Cuvier or 
Turgenev. 

This paper designs to set forth one cardinal 
and overmastering consideration, in comparison 
with which all the other considerations affecting 
the question seem to this writer but as the Httle 
stars to the fuU moon. 

In the lives of all nations there come mo- 
ments when an idea, hitherto vaguely, almost 
unconsciously held, assimies sculptured shape, 
and is manifestly felt to be of vital significance 
to a large, important, and steadily increasing 
section of the commimity. At such moments a 
spectre has begun to haimt the national house — • 
a ghost which cannot be laid till it has received 
quietus, 

Such a ghost now infests our home. 

The full emancipation of women is an idea long 
vaguely held, but only in the last half-century 
formulated and pressed forward with real force 
and conviction, not only by women but by men. 
Of this full emancipation of women, the poHtical 

165 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

vote is assuredly not, as is rather commonly sup- 
posed in a land of party politics, the be-all and 
end-all; it is a symbol, whose practical impor- 
tance — ^though considerable — is as nothing be- 
side the fulfilment of the idea which it symbol- 
ises. 

The Will to Power and the Will to Love have 
been held up, in turn, as the animating princi- 
ples of the Universe; but these are, rather, cor- 
relative haK-truths, whose rivalry is surely stilled 
and reconciled in a yet higher principle, the Will 
to Harmony, to Balance, to Equity — a supreme 
adjustment, or harmonising power, present wher- 
ever a man turns; by which, in fact, he is condi- 
tioned, for he can with his mental apparatus no 
more conceive of a Universe without a Will to 
Equity holding it together, than he can con- 
ceive the opposite of the axiom: ^^Ex nihilo nihil 
fit." There is assuredly no thought so stagger- 
ing as that, if a blade of grass or the energy 
contained within a single emotion were — ^not trans- 
muted — ^but withdrawn entirely from the Uni- 
verse, the balance would tip for ever and the 
Universe crumble in our imaginations to thin air. 

Now social and political equity emanates 
slowly, with infinite labour, from our dim con- 
sciousness of this serene and overlording prin- 
ciple of Equity. There would seem, for example, 

166 



"GENTLES, LET US REST!'' 

no fundamental reason why limits should ever 
have been put to autocracy, the open ballot de- 
stroyed, slavery abohshed, save that these things 
came to be regarded as inequitable. In all such 
cases, before reaching the point of action, the 
society of the day puts forward practical rea- 
sons, being, so to speak, unaware of its own 
sense of divinity. But, underneath all the seem- 
ing matter-of-factness of political and social 
movements, the spirit of Equity is guiding those 
movements, subtly, unconsciously, a compelling 
hand quietly pushing himianity onward, ever un- 
seen save in the rare minutes when the spirits 
of men glow and light up, and things are beheld 
for a moment as they are. The history of a na- 
tion's spiritual development ia but the tale of its 
wistful groping toward the provision of a ma- 
chinery of State, which shall, as nearly as may 
be, accord with the demand of this spirit of 
Equity. Society, worthy of the name, is ever 
secretly shaping around it a temple, within which 
all the natural weaknesses and limitations of the 
dwellers shall be, not exploited and emphasised, 
but to the utmost levelled away and minimised. 
It is ever secretly providing for itself a roof under 
which there shall be the fullest and fairest play 
for aU human energies, however unequal. 
The destinies of mankind are seen to be guided, 
167 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

very slowly, by something more coherent than 
political opportunity; shaped steadily in a given 
direction, toward the completion of that temple 
of justice. There is no other way of explaining 
the growth of man from the cave-dweller to his 
present case. And this slow spiritual shaping 
toward Equity proceeds in spite of the workings 
of the twin bodily agents, force and expediency. 
Social and political growth is, in fact, a process 
of evolution, controlled, directed, spiritualised 
by the supreme principle of Equity. 

This is to state no crazy creed, that because 
equality is mathematically admirable, equality 
should at all times and in all places forthwith 
obtain. Equality, balance, is a dream, the 
greatest of all visions, the beloved star — ever 
to be worshipped, never quite reached. And 
the long road toward it travels the illimitable 
land of compromise. It would have been futile, 
as it was in fact impossible, to liberate slaves, 
when the consciousness of the injustice of slav- 
ery was present only in a few abnormal minds, 
and incommunicable by them to the mind of 
the surrounding society of the time. The pro- 
cess is slow and steady. Equity well knows that 
there is a time for Her, as for all other things. 
She is like the brain, saying to the limbs and 
senses: You are full of queer ways. It is for me 

168 



"GENTLES, LET US REST!" 

to think out gradually the best rule of life, under 
which you must get on as you can, the Devil 
taking the hindmost; and from trying to devise 
this scheme of perfection I may not, nor ever 
shall, rest. 

Social and political justice, then, advances by 
fits and starts, through ideas — children of the 
one great idea of Harmony — ^which are suggested 
now by one, now by another, section or phase of 
national life. The process is like the construc- 
tion and shaping of a work of art. For an artist 
is ever receiving vague impressions from people 
unconsciously observed, from feelings imcon- 
sciously experienced, till in good time he dis- 
covers that he has an idea. This idea is but a 
generahsation or harmonious conception derived 
subconsciously from these vague impressions. 
Being moved to embody that idea, he at once 
begins groping back to, and gathering in, those 
very types and experiences from which he de- 
rived this general notion, in order adequately to 
shape the vehicle — ^his pictiu*e, his poem, his novel 
— ^which shall carry his idea forth to the world. 

So in social and political progress. The exi- 
gencies and inequalities of existing social life 
produce a crop of impressions on certain recep- 
tive minds, which suddenly burst into flower in 
the form of ideas. The minds in which these 

169 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

abstractions or ideas have flowered seek then 
to burgeon them forth, and their method of do- 
ing so is to bring to pubHc notice those exigencies 
and inequaUties which were the original fuel of 
their ideas. In this way is the seed of an idea 
spread among a community. But wherever 
the seed of an idea falls, it has to struggle up 
through layers of prejudice to overcome the rule 
of force and expediency; and if this idea, this 
generalisation from social exigencies or inequali- 
ties, be petty, retrograde, or distorted, it with- 
ers and dies during the struggle. If, on the other 
hand, it be large, consonant with the future, and 
of true promise, it holds fast and spreads. 

Now, one may very justly say that this is all 
a platitudinal explanation of the crude process 
of social and poHtical development. In taking a 
given idea, such as the fuU emancipation of women, 
the fight only begins to rage roimd the question 
whether that idea is in fact holding fast and spread- 
ing, and, if so, whether the community is, or is 
not yet sufficiently permeated with the idea to be 
safely entrusted with its fulfilment. None the less 
must it be borne in mind, that if this idea can be 
proved to be surely spreading, it must be an idea 
emanating from the root divinity in things, from 
the overmastering principle of Equity, and sure 
of ultimate fulfilment; and, the only question 

170 



"GENTLES, LET US REST!^' 

will then be, exactly how long the rule of ex- 
pediency and force may advisably postpone its 
fulfilment. 

Now, in order to discover whether the idea 
of the full emancipation of women is in accord 
with the great principle of Equity, it will be 
necessary, first, to show the present inferiority 
of woman^s pohtical and social position; secondly, 
to consider the essential reason of that inferior- 
ity; and, thirdly, to see whether the facts and 
figures of the movement toward the removal of 
that inferiority clearly prove that the idea has 
long been holding fast and spreading. 

To show, however, that the present political 
and social position of women in England is not 
equal to that of men, it will certainly sufl&ce to 
state two admitted facts: Women have not the 
political vote. Women, who can be divorced for 
one offence, must, before they obtain divorce, 
prove two kinds of offence against their husbands. 

And to ascertain the essential reason of this 
present inferiority, we need hardly go beyond 
the ground facts of difference between men and 
women already mentioned: 

Women are not physically as strong as men. 

Men are never mothers. 

Women are not warriors. 

From these ground facts readily admitted by 
171 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

all, the reason for the present inferiority of wom- 
en^s position emerges clear and unmistakable: 
Women are weaker than men. They are weaker 
because they are not in general built so strongly; 
because they have to bear and to rear children; 
because they are imarmed. There is no getting 
away from it, they are weaker; and one cannot 
doubt for a moment that their inferior position 
is due to this weakness. But — so runs an imme- 
morial argimaent — ^however equal their opportu- 
nities might be, women will never be as strong as 
men ! Why, then, for sentimental reasons, dis- 
turb the present order of things, why equalise 
those opportunities ? This is the plea which was 
used before married women were allowed separate 
property, before the decision in Regina versus 
Jackson, which forbade a husband to hold his 
wife prisoner. The argument, in fact, of expedi- 
ency and force. 

Now there are no finer statements of the case 
for the full emancipation of women than Mill's 
"Subjection of Women,'' and Miss Jane Harri- 
son's essay, entitled: "Homo Sum." The rea- 
sonings in the former work are too well-known, 
but to the main thesis of "Homo Sum" allusion 
must here be made. The most common, per- 
haps most telhng plea against raising the social 
and political status of women to a level with 

172 



^^ GENTLES, LET US REST!" 

that of men, is this: Men and women are al- 
ready equal, but in separate spheres of activity. 
The difference between their physical conforma- 
tion and functions underhes everything in the 
Hves of both. The province and supremacy of 
women are in the home; the province and su- 
premacy of men in the State. Why seek to 
alter what Nature has ordained? A plea, in 
fact, which glorifies sex qua sex. 

But the writer of "Homo Sum'^ is at pains 
to show that "the splendid and vital instinct of 
sex,'' with all its "singular power of interpene- 
trating and reinforcing other energies,'' is in es- 
sence egoistic, exclusive, anti-social; and that 
besides and beyond being men and women, we 
are all human beings. "The whole women's 
movement," the writer says, "is just the learn- 
ing of that lesson. It is not an attempt to arro- 
gate man's prerogative of manhood; it is not 
even an attempt to assert; and emphasise wom- 
an's privilege of womanhood; ifc is simply the 
demand that in the life of woman, as in the life 
of man, space and liberty shall be found for a 
thing bigger than either manhood or woman- 
hood — ^for humanity." 

In fact the splendid instinct of sex — ^for all its 
universality, for all that through and by it life 
is perpetuated, for all its power of bringing de- 

173 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

light, and of revealing the heights and depths 
of human emotion — ^is still essentially an agent 
of the rule of force. We cannot but perceive 
that there is in both men and women something 
more exalted and impersonal, akin to the su- 
preme principle of Equity, to the divinity in 
things; and that this something keeps men and 
women together, as strongly, as inevitably, as 
sex keeps them apart. What is all the effort of 
civiKsation but the gradual fortifying of that 
higher part of us, the exaltation of the principle 
of justice; the chaining of the principle of Force? 
The full emancipation of women would be one 
more step in the march of oiu- civilisation; a 
sign that this nation was stiU serving himian- 
ity, still trying to be gentle and just. For if it 
has ceased to serve humanity, we must surely 
pray that the waters may rise over this island, 
and that she may go down all standing ! 

If then, women's position is inferior to men's, 
if the essential reason of this inferiority is her 
weakness, or, in other words, the still imchecked 
dominance of force, to what extent do the facts 
and figures of the movement toward removing 
the inferiority of women's position prove that 
the idea of the full emancipation of women is, 
not petty and false, withering and dying, but 
large and true, holding fast and spreading? 

174 



"GENTLES, LET US RESTT^ 

In 1866, a petition for the vote, signed by 
1,499 women, was presented to Parliament by 
John Stuart Mill. 

In 1873, petitions for the suffrage from 11,000 
women were presented to Gladstone and Dis- 
raeli. 

In 1896, an appeal was made to members of 
Parliament by 257,000 women of all classes and 
parties. 

In 1897, 1,285 petitions in favour of a Wom- 
en's Suffrage Bill were presented to Parliament, 
being 800 more petitions than those presented 
in favour of any other biU. 

In 1867, Mill's amendment to substitute "per- 
son'' for "man" in the Representation of the 
People Act was rejected by a majority of 121. 

In 1908, Stanger's Bill to enable women to 
vote on the same terms as men passed its second 
reading by a majority of 179. 

In 1893, 1894, and 1895, the franchise was 
granted to women in New Zealand, Colorado, 
South Australia, and Utah. 

In 1900, 1902, 1903, 1905, 1908, and 1910, the 
franchise was granted to women in Western 
Australia, New South Wales, Tasmania, Finland, 
Norway, Victoria, and the State of Washington. 

In 1902, a petition was signed by 750 women 
graduates. 

175 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

In 1906; a petition was signed by 1,530 women 
graduates. 

In 1910, the membership of the various 
Women's Suffrage Societies, and of bodies of 
men and women who have declared in favour 
of the idea of women^s suffrage, is estimated by- 
some at over half a milKon — a figure subject, 
no doubt, to great deduction; but certainly also 
to very great addition for sympathisers who 
belong to no such societies or bodies. 

These, briefly, are the main facts and figures. 
From them but one conclusion can be drawn. 
The idea of the fuU emancipation of women hav- 
ing fulfilled the requirements of steady growth 
over a long space of years, and giving every 
promise of further steady growth, is in accord 
with the principle of Equity; intrinsically just. 
How long wiU it remain possible in the service of 
expediency and force to refuse to this idea its 
complete fruition; how long will it be wise ? For 
when the limit of wisdom is reached, expediency 
has obviously become inexpedient, and force un- 
worthy. 

When out of 670 members of a House of Com- 
mons 400 have given pledges to support wom- 
en's suffrage; when a measure for the enfran- 
chisement of women on the same terms as men 
has passed its second reading by a majority of 

176 



"GENTLES, LET US REST!'' 

17Q, and in face of this declaration of sentiment 
Government has refused to afford facihties for 
carrying it into law, there must obviously be 
some definite hostile factor in the political equa- 
tion. In a country governed as ours is, it is but 
natural that those who are, so to speak, trustees 
for its policy, should not look with favour on 
any measure which may in their opinion defi- 
nitely set back that policy, or affect it in some 
way which they cannot with sufficient clearness 
foresee. The cause of women, in fact, is a lost 
dog owned by neither party, distrusted by both. 
While there is yet danger of being bitten, each 
watches that dog carefully, holding out a more 
or less friendly hand. But when the door of the 
house is safely closed, she may howl her heart 
out in the cold. The press, too, with few excep- 
tions, is committed to one or other of these par- 
ties. To the press, the cause of women is a home- 
less wanderer to whom it is proper to give casual 
alms, but who can hardly be brought in to the 
fire, lest she take up the room of the children 
of the house. And so out of the despair caused 
by this lost drifting in a vicious circle out of 
a position created by party expediency, the in- 
evitable has come to pass. Militant suffragism 
has arisen — ^ironically, and, to my thinking, re- 
grettably, since the real spiritual significance and 

177 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

true national benefit of the full emancipation of 
women will lie in the victory of justice over force; 
and to employ what must needs be inferior force 
to achieve the victory of justice over force, is not 
only futile, but so befogging to the whole matter 
that the essential issue of Equity is more than 
ever hidden from the mind of the public. Mili- 
tancy may have served certain purposes, but it 
has added one more element of fixity to an im- 
passe already existing, for the woman of action 
is saying, ^' Until you give me the vote I shall 
act like this"; and the man of action is answer- 
ing her: "So long as you act like that I shall 
not give you the vote. To yield to you would 
be to admit the efiicacy of threats and establish 
a bad precedent." 

None the less, human nature being what it is, 
mihtancy was inevitable, and the wise will look 
at the situation, not as it was or might be, but 
as it is. We must consider what effect that 
situation is having on the national character. 
Every little outrage committed on men by 
women is met by another committed on women 
by men; and each time one of these mutual out- 
rages takes place, tens of thousands of minds in 
this country are blimted in that most sensitive 
quality — gentleness. It is idle to pretend that 
women have not stood, and do not stiU stand, to 

178 



^'GENTLES, LET US REST!" 

men as the chief reason for being gentle; that 
men have not, and do not still stand to women, 
in the same capacity. By every Httle mutual 
outrage, then, the beneficence of sex is being 
weakened, its maleficence awakened, throughout 
the land. And the harm which is thus being done 
is so impalpable, so subtle, as to be beyond the 
power of most to notice at all, and surely beyond 
the power of statesmen to assess. That is the 
mischief. The scent is stealing away out of the 
flower of our m-banity. It will be long before the 
gardeners discover how odourless and arid that 
flower has become, 

For it is not so much the action of the mili- 
tant women themselves, nor that of those who 
are suppressing them, which is doing this subtle 
harm. It is the effect of this scrimmage on the 
spectators; the coarsening, and hardening, and 
general embitterment; the secret glorification 
of the worst side of the sex instinct; the con- 
stant exaltation of the rule of force; the rapid 
growth of a ranking sense of injustice among 
tens of thousands of women. To say that him- 
dreds of thousands of women are opposed, or 
indifferent, to the full emancipation of their sex, 
is not, in truth, to say very much. No civilis- 
ing movement was ever brought to fruition save 
in the face of the indifference or opposition of 

179 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

the majority. What proportion of agricultural 
labourers were actively concerned to win for 
themselves the vote? How small a fraction of 
the people actively demanded free education? 
But when these privileges were won, what mun- 
ber of those for whom they were won would have 
been willing to resign them ? If women were fully 
emancipated to-morrow, many would certainly re- 
sent what they would deem a blow at the in- 
fluence and power already wielded by them in 
virtue of their sex. But in two years' time how 
many would be willing to surrender their free- 
dom? As certainly, not ten in a hxmdred! To 
compare the disapproval of women raised against 
their wills to a state of emancipation in which 
they can remain inactive if they hke, with the 
bitter resentment spreading like slow poison in 
the veins of those who fruitlessly demand eman- 
cipation, is to compare the energy of vanishing 
winter snow with that of the spring sim which 
melts it. 

In an age when spirituality has ever a more 
desperate struggle to maintain hold at aU against 
the inroads of materialism, any increase of bit- 
terness in the national life, any loss of gentle- 
ness, aspiration, and mutual trust between the 
sexes, however silent, secret, and unmeasur- 
able, is a very serious thing. Justice, neglected, 

180 



"GENTLES, LET US REST!'' 

works her own insidious revenge. Every month, 
every year, the germs of bitterness and brutal- 
ity will be spreading. If any think that this 
people has gentleness to spare, and can afford 
to tamper with the health of its spirit, they are 
mistaken. If any think that repression can put an 
end to this aspiration — again they are mistaken. 
The idea of the full emancipation of women is so 
rooted that nothing can now uproot it. 

But apart from the pohtical impasse, there 
are those, who, satisfied that women have not 
the political aptitude of men, are chiefly opposed 
to the granting of the vote for fear that it will 
come to mean the return of women to Parlia- 
ment. Now, if their conviction regarding the 
inferiority of women's political capacity be soimd 
— as I for one, speaking generally, am inclined to 
beheve — ^there is no danger of women being re- 
turned to Parliament save in such small num- 
bers as to make no matter. If it be unsound — 
if the political capacity of woman be equal to 
man's — it is time Parliament were reinforced by 
women's presence. New waters soon find their 
level. Nor are such as distrust the political 
capacities of women qualified to prophesy a 
flood. To debar women for fear of their com- 
petition is a poKcy of little spirit, and not one 
that the men of this country will consciously 

181 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

adopt, unless we have indeed lost the fire of our 
fathers. There are many, too, who beheve that 
the granting of the vote to women will increase 
the emotional element m an electorate whose 
emotional side they already distmst, and thereby 
endanger our relations with foreign Powers. But 
it has yet to be proved that women are, in a 
wide sense of the word, more emotional than men; 
and, even conceding that they are, why forget 
that they will bring to the consideration of in- 
ternational matters the solid reinforcement of 
two qualities — ^the first, a practical domestic 
sense lacking to men, and hkely to foster na- 
tional reluctance to plunge into wild-cat wars; the 
second, a greater faculty for self-sacrifice, tending 
to fortify national determination to persist in a 
war once imdertaken. It is well known that 
during the American Civil War the women of 
the Southern States displayed a spirit of resis- 
tance even more heroic than that of their men- 
folk. To retain women in their present state of 
social and political inferiority for reasons which 
are so debatable, savours, surely, somewhat of the 
sultanic. We have, in fact, yet to imbibe the 
spirit of Mill's wisest isaying: "Among all the 
lessons which men require for carrying on the 
struggle against the evident imperfections of their 
lot on earth, there is no lesson which they more 

182 



"GENTLES, LET US REST!'^ 

need than not to add to the evils which nature 
inflicts, by their jealous and prejudiced restric- 
tions on one another.'^ 

In fine, out of the practical perplexities brood- 
ing over this whole matter, there is no way save 
by resort to the first principles of gentility. It 
has been uncontrovertibly estabhshed that there 
is in this country a great and ever-increasing 
body of women suffering from a bitter sense of 
injustice; what course, then, compatible with 
true gentihty, is left open to us men ? Our whole 
social life is in essence but a long, slow striving 
for the victory of justice over force; and this 
demand of our women for full emancipation is 
but a sign of that striving. Are we not bound 
in honour to admit this simple fact? Shall we 
not at last give fulfilment to this idea — ^with the 
due caution that should mark all political ex- 
periment? Has not, in truth, the time come for 
us to say: From this resistance to the claims of 
Equity; from this bitter and ungracious conflict 
with those weaker than ourselves; from this slow 
poisoning of the well-springs of our national 
courtesy, and kindhness, and sense of fair play: 
"Gentles, let us rest!" 



183 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

II 
APPEAL TO THE PRESS 

(A Letter to the Daily News, 1911) 

I write as a supporter of woman^s suffrage, 
but not of militant suffragism. Whenever I have 
remonstrated with a militant suffragist I have 
received this answer: 

"We could not keep the movement before the 
eyes of the public without militant tactics, be- 
cause the papers, with two or three exceptions, 
would not report peaceful work. For this rea- 
son we adopted our methods, and the event has 
justified us. We have advanced the cause — 
simply by forcing it on people^s attention in the 
only way open to us — ^more in the last three 
years than those who pursued peaceful methods 
had done in the last forty. ^' 

Whatever may now be the feelings and in- 
tentions of the mihtant suffragists, this answer 
did undoubtedly set forth the true reason for 
the inception of mihtant tactics. 

All political and social movements in this 
country depend for vitality on catching the eye 
and the thought of the community. And we 
may draw one of two alternative morals from 
that prolonged silence of the press toward wom- 

184 



"GENTLES, LET US REST!" 

an's suffrage, which originally brought about the 
campaign of violence: Either, that men, hav- 
ing possession of the organs of pubhc opinion, 
deliberately kept them closed to the discus- 
sion of the political rights of women — a supposi- 
tion I should prefer not to entertain. Or, that 
reports of violence and sensationahsm are more 
sought after than tales of reason and sobriety ! 
Whichever the moral drawn, it is very discreditable 
to pubhc feeling in this country. 

Is it too late for those who are responsible for 
the press to take the lead in removing such a 
stigma? It is lugubrious that, in our England 
of free speech and fair play, in this nation hith- 
erto supposed to excel in pohtical sense, it should 
have been found necessary to advocate and ad- 
vertise by mere sensationalism a pohtical and 
social movement of more wide-reaching and uni- 
versal nature than any now before the pubhc; 
a movement of such epoch-making character 
that few people have afc present grasped its real 
significance. Surely it is important that the 
people of this country should be educated in the 
reason and the rights of a question such as this. 
But in order that they may be so educated it is 
necessary that they should read, not the account 
of how "So-and-so's windows were broken, '' or 
of how "Such an one was arrested,'' but argu- 

185 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

merits presented in speech and writing for and 
against the suffrage. 

The extent to which the formation of pubHc 
opinion on any poHtical measure depends on 
the pubHcation in the press of reason, pro and 
con, can be seen from the growth of the Tariff 
Reform party, which a few years ago was a 
negHgible faction. The imminence and gravity 
of this issue of woman^s suffrage can no longer 
be denied. It has to be faced. It wiU have 
to be decided. Does the press of this country 
wish it to be decided by an electorate utterly 
unversed in its merits and demerits? Would 
the press of this country wish any big political 
or social measure to be so decided? Is it just, 
generous, or politic that, when women try by 
peaceful and constitutional means to promulgate 
their cause, there should be silence? If there 
had not been this silence, mihtant suffragism 
would never have been born. By the removal 
of this silence militant suffragism may still be 
helped toward a natural death. 

I appeal to aU editors (whether friends or 
enemies of the movement), who have already 
shown themselves ahve to what is rapidly be- 
coming the desperate importance of this issue, 
to combine, and advocate an alteration of the 
general press pohcy — ^to advocate the throwing 

186 



''GENTLES, LET US REST!" 

open of all journals to fair and full report, not 
of the sensational, but of the reasonable, sides, 
for and against, of woman's suffrage. For, 
whether consciously or imconsciously, the general 
press policy has hitherto been most unfortunate, 
and is fast contributing to the growth of a bit- 
ter feeling between the sexes, in the last degree 
noxious to the national life. 



187 



ON SOCIAL UNREST 

(A Paper in The Daily Mail, 1912) 

"This is a psychological question, a matter of 
mental states/' (H. G. Wells.) It is. And in 
•examining these mental states there are two, 
out of many factors, on which I do not think 
too much emphasis can be laid, not only because 
they are in themselves vital to the evil, but be- 
cause they both arise from the same prime under- 
lying deficiency in our national life. 

The first is the influence on society at large 
produced by the great and rapid growth of the 
fiduciary element in the conduct of commercial 
enterprise and landed estates. The agent, the 
director, the manager, the trustee have almost 
entirely displaced the old-time owner, merchant, 
and manufacturer, who did business by and for 
themselves. 

A class has been created who, already in a 
state of professional altruism, are impervious, 
and on the face of it rightly impervious, to al- 
truism of any other kind. 

What large business nowadays is not con- 
ducted as a Limited Company by a board of 

188 



ON SOCIAL UNREST 

directors appointed and paid by the sharehold- 
ers as trustees to produce for them a maximum 
of profit? What large estate is not managed by 
a paid agent on the same principle? And, how- 
ever generous our aspirations, which of us does 
not know the deflecting power of trusteeship, 
rigidified, as it is, by law and by the sense that 
we are paid for the performance of a job inimi- 
cal to generosity ? True — ^the rates of wages and 
of rent come not under rules but under the 
broad heading of poHcy; and, in deep reahty, I 
suspect it to be equally true that the maximum 
of generosity ministers in the long run to the 
maximum of stabihty and profit; nevertheless, 
there can be no doubt whatever that the trustee 
system not only befogs and deadens the hinnan 
relationship between employer and employed, but 
affords an overwhelming support to our natural 
instinct to take the immediate view and fine of 
least resistance. 

Broadly speaking, where there is trusteeship, 
as trusteeship is now understood, there is no 
wide view of the relation of Capital to Labour 
in the light of the good of Society as a whole; 
there is only a faithful, cold-blooded, purblind 
service for the benefit of a cestui que trust, who 
is himself freed from a sense of personal respon- 
sibihty and from all apparent need for a wide 

189 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

and human outlook. The trustee system, if not 
already, will soon be, universal, and I see no 
means of counteracting its secret, dangerous, 
and irritating effect on the mind of Labour, 
save by such process of education as shall soak 
the spirit of the prosperous classes with an alto- 
gether larger and saner feeling of the funda- 
mental imity and interdependence of Society, 
with a good-will so vastly increased that the 
shareholder and cestui que trust shall no longer 
require the director or trustee to consider them 
and them alone, but bid him instead consider 
equally the interests of the employed. Such a 
mood of altruism is now, roughly speaking, ab- 
sent from the minds of the prosperous classes; 
and to attain to it is a consummation that I fear 
will never come about imder our present system 
of education. 

The second influence on which I would lay 
great emphasis is the state of mind produced by 
our system of education in the young of the pros- 
perous classes at our private and public schools, 
and, to a less extent, at our imiversities. Before 
dwelling on this let me suggest two truths. In life, 
where a fortunate person is brought into contact 
with one less fortunate, the first step toward 
cordial relationship must obviously come from 
the fortunate. For himian nature is happily so 

190 



ON SOCIAL UNREST 

constituted that the less fortunate feels ashamed 
to make advances which, Hable to misconstruc- 
tion, are not compatible with self-respect. Every- 
man of any worth can test, is testing, this truth 
continually in his own life; it cannot be doubted. 
Again, where advances are made by the fortu- 
nate from sheer friendliness and without ulterior 
motive, they most certainly evoke response in 
the same friendly spirit from all save exceptional 
churls. 

Now, since these primary truths concerning 
himian nature underhe the whole question of 
Labour Unrest, it becomes of the first impor- 
tance to consider how far the young of the pros- 
perous classes are made actively famihar with 
them. How far are the legions at our private 
and public schools (those legions from whom the 
ranks of Capital are, in the main, recruited) made 
to imderstand, and — ^more than understand — to 
jeel that they are fortunate, that Labour is less 
fortunate, that they will have to hve their fives 
in interdependence with Labour, and that if they 
do not make — out of a free and fine heart make 
— ^the first advances to good-feUowship with less 
fortunate Labour, those advances can — ^by a 
law, and a good law, of himaan nature — ^never be 
made? How far are they at present brought up 
to see this? I would go so far as to say — hardly 

191 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

at all. In my day at a public school — and I have 
no reason at all to hope that, whatever be the 
exceptions, the general rule has greatly changed — 
the Universe was divided into ourselves and 
'^outsiders," "bounders," "chaws/' "cads/' or 
whatever more or less offensive name best seemed 
to us to characterise those less fortunate than 
ourselves. It is true that we apphed the name 
mainly to the lower ranks of Capital rather than 
to actual Labour, but this was only because we 
lived so far away from industrial workers that 
we never even thought of them. Such working 
folk as we actually came into personal contact 
with we never dreamed of associating with any 
such offensive thought in our minds or speech on 
our tongues; but, generically, the working man 
did not exist for us except as a person outside, 
remote, and almost inimical. From our homes, 
touched already by this class feehng, caught up 
from poHtical talk by chance overheard, we went 
to private schools, where the teaching of man- 
ners, mainly under clerical supervision, effectually 
barred us from any contaminating influence; so 
that if by chance we encountered the "lower class'' 
boy we burned to go for him and correct his 
"cheek." Thence we were passed into the great 
"Caste" factory, a public school, where the feel- 
ing became, by mere process of being left to itself, 
as set and hard as iron. It is true that a level- 

192 



ON SOCIAL UNREST 

ling process went on among the boys themselves, 
so that a duke's son was no more accounted of 
than a stock-broker's; but, nevertheless, all learned 
to consider themselves Hhe elect/ Of ten public- 
school boys, seven have come from "caste ''-in- 
fected homes and private schools, and have ac- 
tive prejudice already. The remaining three may 
still be open-minded or indifferent; of these, two 
will infalHbly follow the sway of the herd in- 
stinct; one may perhaps develop a Hne of his 
own, or adhere to the influence of a home inim- 
ical to "caste," and become a "smug" or Radi- 
cal. In result, failing definite, sustained effort 
to break up a narrow "caste" feehng, the pubhc 
school presents a practically solid phalanx of the 
fortunate, insulated against real knowledge of, 
or syrapathy with, the less fortunate. This pha- 
lanx marches out into the professions, into busi- 
ness, into the universities, where, it is true, some 
awaken to a sense of wider values — ^but not too 
many. From the point of view of any one who 
tries to see things as they are, and see them as 
a whole, there is something terrific about this 
automatic "caste" moulding of the young. And 
in the present condition of our coimtry it is folly, 
and dangerous folly, to blink it.* 
For all my love of my old school, for all my 

* Many think the war will alter all this. I only wish I did. 
— J. G. 

193 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

realisation of the fact that her training equips 
her children with certain qualities invaluable to 
public life and public service, I do feel that she 
and all her sisters are disserving the national 
welfare by refraining from really active and reso- 
lute attempts to destroy the bad side of "caste" 
feeling. They let it grow of its own momentimi 
through the herd instinct till it blinds the eyes 
and blunts the feelings of those who, being for- 
tunate, must by the laws of human nature make 
the first advances toward friendship with the 
less fortunate, if those advances are to be made 
at all; and must make them, not because to 
neglect them is dangerous, but out of brotherly 
f eehng and a real hearty wish to give all the help 
they can to such as are not so lucky as them- 
selves. I do not mean that oiu* pubhc schools 
and universities are consciously refraining. They 
are not, and their very unconsciousness is half 
the danger. And I do not say that there are no 
masters or dons, conscious of the danger and try- 
ing their best to remove it, but I do say there 
are not nearly enough. A few swallows do not 
make a summer. 

Since, in relation to the foregoing, four objec- 
tions, at all events, are bound to be made, let me 
make them myself, and answer them too. First, 
it is not the pubhc school and varsity man who 

194 



ON SOCIAL UNREST 

IS lacking in sympathy and good-will toward La- 
bour; it is the self-made CapitaMst, or the gram- 
mar-school man. The truth is that, with ex- 
ceptions, they all are lacking. But the defect 
is more dangerous and insidious within 'Hhe 
caste" than without; for not only is "the caste" 
homogeneous and far more influential in every 
way, but it veils its lack of sympathy in this very 
pretension of having sympathy. Next, it will be 
said: 'You accuse us of lack of sympathy! But 
we would gladly be sympathetic, if they would 
only let us !' Now, this in the main is a perfectly 
genuine belief in members of "the caste" when 
they have once gone out into life and rubbed off 
the rawness of youthful hostility and prejudice. 
But it is the genuine behef of people only pas- 
sively inclined to friendship; in other words, the 
belief of the fortunate not imbued with a spirit 
sufficiently high and generous to take, from the 
best motives, active steps toward friendship with 
the less fortunate. 

Further, it will be said: 'But Labour is not 
really less fortunate than ourselves — ^it has free- 
dom from cares, responsibiHties, and expenses, 
such as we can never know; in fact, we are not 
sure that it is not really the more fortunate 
class.' Well ! Apart from the fact that not one 
in ten thousand of "the caste" would change 

195 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

places with an industrial worker, there is this 
answer: 'On your hypothesis, evolution, which 
is "caste's^' main justification, is absurd and our 
system is standing on its head. If, indeed, you 
require Labour to consider itself at least as for- 
tunate as yourselves, you must set to work at 
once and revalue ever3i;hing, alter every present 
ideal in your social Hfe, and annul the impor- 
tance of property. Are you prepared to do this ? ' 
Finally, it will be objected: 'It may be as you 
say, but the evil is impKcit and inevitable, for 
everything possible is already done by our edu- 
cational authorities to counteract a narrow 
"caste" spirit and imbue the children of the for- 
tunate with a brotherly feeling toward the less 
fortunate.' The answer to this is simply: 'Has 
everything been done ? Has anything like every- 
thing been done? For example, is the need for 
counteracting this narrow "caste" spirit ever 
taken into account in the appointment of these 
same educational authorities?' 

Besides being "snobs" in the best sense of 
that word, boys are high-spirited, generous, and 
malleable creatures. Let any fair-minded man 
of "the caste" ask himself: ''What sustained and 
reaUy 'felt' effort did he encounter from his own 
teachers in school and college days to turn that 
high spirit, and generosity, and malleability of 

196 



ON SOCIAL UNEEST 

his into a state of mind that regarded his good 
fortune as a thing to be held in trust to share 
to the full with the less fortunate? " A few will 
answer truly: ''Yes, I have met with such effort/' 
But how few! 

Again, then, I am brought to the point of 
saying: There is a general absence of active and 
sustained effort to produce in the young of the 
prosperous classes this "good-will" state of mind; 
to change such general absence of effort into a 
general presence of effort is a consimimation that 
will never, I think, be reached under our pres- 
ent system of education. 

Both these influences, then, contributing to 
Social Unrest — ^the one produced by the in- 
creasing presence of the fiduciary element, and 
the other by the tmchecked growth of a narrow 
"caste" spirit — ^lead us to the same prime under- 
lying deficiency in our national life: the lack of 
right purpose in our education. They happen 
to be both incident to Capital, but it is probable 
that influencas incident to Laboiu-, of which I 
hesitate to speak, since I cannot from personal 
experience and feeling, may also in measure be 
traced to the same underlying deficiency in our 
education. 

No national improvement can come from out- 
side. It must come from within, from gradu- 

197 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

ally improved feeling in the body politic. To 
hope for growth without this improvement is to 
hope that a man shall raise himself from the 
gromid by the hair of his own head. But im- 
proved feeling has no chance of spreading through- 
out the body politic without that machinery of 
infection which we know by the name of educa- 
tion. Therefore education is the most sacred 
concern, indeed the only hope of a nation. 

How do we now treat our education — this 
sacred thing, this only hope? In regard to the 
classes, its direction and control are left en- 
tirely to the haphazard beck and call of each 
separate school or college, without conformity 
to or guidance from any professed national aim, 
principle, or ideal. In regard to the masses, it 
is the concern of a Department of State, just as 
are Trade, the Post-Office, or the Navy, and is 
treated, not as a spiritual matter underlying all 
else, but as a material affair. The spiritual side 
of education is supposed to be the concern of 
the religious bodies; but if we are quite honest 
we have to confess that the religious bodies have 
no longer sufficient hold on classes or masses to 
inspire in either such wide mutual good-will and 
sense of service as will forward any real improve- 
ment in the relations between Capital and Labour, 
between the fortunate and less fortunate classes. 

198 



ON SOCIAL UNREST 

The religious bodieS; let us say, have tried their 
best, but since our last state is worse than our 
first, they must be considered to have failed. Their 
influence, indeed, is too incoherent and dispersed, 
pervasive here and there, but without either the 
centrality or force to promote in us a great na- 
tional change toward that essence of Christianity 
— ^mutual good-will and sense of service. There 
is no longer, I am afraid, hope in that direction. 

Deep down we know all this, but we have not 
yet bestirred ourselves to find out what it is that 
we are trying to do with our civilisation, or in- 
deed whether we are trying to do anything ex- 
cept just keep our heads above water from hour 
to hour. 

And we have not yet bestirred ourselves, partly 
because we are still breathless and uncertain 
after that long and tremendous struggle within 
us between science and orthodox religion, which 
has torn the wings off both; and partly because 
we are paralysed by the word Democracy. We 
dare not move for fear of endowing education 
with too much authority. There may, of course, 
be another and far more deadly reason why we 
have not bestirred ourselves. We may be too 
far gone to devise any improved standard or 
machinery of education, too flaccid to impart, or 
even to desire to impart, to our education that 

199 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

spiritual quality, that devotion to an ideal, which 
is our only hope. If so, we must resign ourselves 
to a desperate class struggle, as to some bitter, 
poisonous tonic, from which we may perhaps 
gain strength to deal with our disease, but of 
which we may take too much and die. Person- 
ally — ^being, as they say, a pessimist — ^I prefer to 
think that all is not yet lost; that we are still 
capable of expressing in the form of a faith the 
aspiration toward Perfection that does, that must, 
lie inarticulate within us; still capable of finding 
machinery, and men to work it, that shall drive 
this faith into the very heart of all classes. 

At aU events, I refuse to believe that we can- 
not do a good deal more with education as a 
solvent of our troubles than we have done hith- 
erto. The main and obvious difficulty — one 
might say the only real difficulty — ^in education, 
as in all the affairs of life, is to find the men; and 
to find the men we can only make use of machin- 
ery which is acceptable to a democratic age. 
Yes, we cannot now go outside democracy, and 
that is something to be profoundly grateful for. 
The only trouble with democracy is that it is 
slow and inarticulate. And I do not feel that the 
democratic principle — ^in which I believe as much 
as any man — ^will ever do itself justice until it 
discovers some quicker way than it yet has of 

200 



ON SOCIAL UNREST 

shaping out of itself its spiritual essence, some 
swifter way of extracting from itself and utilis- 
ing for its own service the highest aspiration 
and finest feeling within it. It has succeeded on 
the whole fairly well in discovering and making 
use of its best business and administrative minds; 
but so far it has regarded spirituality as com- 
pletely outside its province and dehberately left 
it to religious bodies that have no longer, nation- 
ally speaking, a real hold on us, and are pro- 
fessedly autocratic. In fact, democracy at pres- 
ent — ^and not only here but in America — offers 
the spectacle of a man running down a road fol- 
lowed at a more and more respectful distance 
by his own soul! 

Can our education any longer be safely treated 
in this casual way, be safely left to churches 
from whose hand it has too far slipped; be safely 
left as to the classes to chance and to vested in- 
terests; as to the masses to mere business man- 
agement ? 

Should we not rather trust it coherently and 
as a whole to the finest spirits and broadest minds 
in the country; to spirits that can be rehed on 
to hold, and to minds that can be relied on to 
apply, a really high ideal; relied on, too, to select 
and train the best men available for the propagor- 
tion of that ideal f If by some democratic process 

201 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

we could sift out these minds from among us and 
endow them with wholesale powers of selection, 
appointment, and training of teachers, we should 
have established a sort of endless band on which 
might travel a perpetual vitalising current of 
the best feeling within us. To find these finest 
spirits and broadest minds we might conceivably 
use the existing representative machinery of Par- 
liament, or some reformed representative system; 
or we might institute a special straining and sift- 
ing process, by means of plebiscite within plebis- 
cite, till we were reasonably sure of arriving at 
the men best fitted to be entrusted with a high, 
coherent plan of education. We have, then, to 
found and place under their guidance a great 
training college, wherein the higher leaders of edu- 
cation may be imbued with the new spirit, traiaed 
in the new standards; and pass out, as posts fall 
vacant, to the headships of schools and colleges. 
And if it be objected, as it certainly will, that 
this is to constitute a too-rigid spiritual bureau- 
cracy, the answer is twofold : This is the plan on 
which you order all your political, your material 
life, without regarding it as in the least dangerous 
or undemocratic; and, secondly, you have at 
present exactly the same bureaucratic methods 
of appointment in education, only they are ex- 
ercised in a hole-and-corner manner, quite in- 

202 



ON SOCIAL UNREST 

coherently, and without any democratic check at 
all. 

There is no revolution in this idea, and it will 
certainly prove no immediate or quack remedy. 
It is, in few words, a suggestion that we should 
adopt for spiritual things, for states of mind, 
the method that, roughly speaking, we have 
found works best in material matters. Democ- 
racy wiU never really flourish till it has taken 
charge, and that right heartily, of its own spiri- 
tuahty. 

Life itself is the best education in spirituahty a 
nation gets. But the plea here is only for better 
machinery to express and direct 'the experience 
and latent good-will which is implicit within the 
nation, and is not now brought out into the light 
for the nation's service. We are living in a 
parched field under which there is plenty of water, 
but we have sunk no well, put up no pumping- 
gear, with which to make our pasture green. Is 
the notion that we can still do this a prepos- 
terous dream, a mere presumptuous coimsel of 
perfection ? 

We have at present an air charged with trouble; 
if we are not to shut our eyes, fold our hands, 
and drift, all th,at we do must be in the direction 
of improving our state of mind. But there is no 
way of improving a state of mind save by fer- 

203 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

tilising it with the faith and good-will of a higher 
mind. Our machinery for doing this has failed 
us. Indeed, nationally speaking, we no longer 
have any. What more useful efforts, then, can 
we make than efforts in the direction of discover- 
ing a new machinery? And the finer the spirits, 
the broader the minds, we place in charge thereof, 
the greater power we give them, always subject 
to the safeguard of election, the more we may 
hope to emerge gradually from our sinister situ^ 
ation. 



204 



ON PEACE 



THE WILL TO PEACE 

(From The Daily Mail, 1909) 

I was walking in the district known as Netting 
Dale, looking for signs of the Millennium, when 
r saw on a poster these words: "Why England 
and Germany must go to war!" 

I stood gazing at them in the company of a 
woman the worse for drink, a brutal-looking 
man, a consumptive boy, and a half -starved horse 
harnessed to a cart. With the exception of the 
horse, these persons were soon replaced by a Ht- 
tle labourer with a very sad face, and a sick- 
looking woman in a ragged shawl. When they, 
in turn, passed on, I was joined in front of the 
poster by three girls going home from work — 
the sound of whose laughter was hke the snap- 
ping of dried sticks, and by a whisky-perfimied 
man with that pecuHar, brazen look in the eye 
which is liable to sudden eclipse. These, too, 
stayed but a short time, and their places before 
the poster were filled by two youths in ragged 
clothes, with dun-coloured faces, and the stumps 
of cigarettes between pale lips. Their footsteps 

205 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

and obscenity having died away, I was left alone 
with the poster and the horse. This horse's ribs 
were conspicuous; and from the size of egg-cup 
shaped hollows above eyes covered with a blue- 
ish film, he had evidently laboured to the limit 
of his capacity. He was resting one thin leg — 
too hairless at the knee, too hairy at the heel. 
Two very young children came now, and hold- 
ing each other's hands, flattened their noses 
against the poster in the shop window. One of 
them moved her feet continually as if her boots 
hurt her, while on the feet of the other were the 
wrecks of boots. 

And I said to myself: In hundreds of towns 
all over the country, people Hke this are stand- 
ing before that poster, or passing by it. One- 
third of the population are below the Hne of 
reasonable subsistence, another third are able 
by the constant employment of every energy to 
keep their heads just on that line. We are the 
richest country in the world, so that even in or- 
ganised Germany conditions little better may 
very well be prevalent. This poster declares that 
England and Germany must go to war. And this 
poster is no joke, but the indication of a frame of 
mind. Moreover, I mused, credit for sincerity 
being" due to all men until the opposite is proved 
against them, this frame of mind must be honest 
and founded on genuine fear — ^must be, in fact, 

206 



THE WILL TO PEACE 

the conviction of many, not only in this country 
but in Germany. They contemplate a war be- 
tween two nations, two-thirds of whose respec- 
tive populations are as yet barely able to make 
a Hving; a war that means wasting many hun- 
dred million pounds and the earning power of 
many hundred thousand lives; a war that will 
in six months cast on to the dust-heap twenty 
years of social progress; a war that may well 
have no semblance of nobility, no great motto, 
no inspiring cause, but be a mere sordid strug- 
gle between two business communities, for so- 
called commercial ends; a war that may be un- 
paralleled for cold-blooded horror and myopic 
puerihty. And the poster speaks of this war as 
if it were inevitable! 

Where, I asked myself, can the people who 
thus think and speak have lived? Where have 
they kept their hearts, and brains, and eyes, and 
noses ? Can they not see these milHons of ghosts 
in their midst ? Or do they think to fatten them 
by war? Do they think by war to cheapen the 
price of bread and coals, to spread education, 
to foster the growth of science and of the arts? 
Will they by war preserve the strongest males 
for the improvement of the human stock? Will 
they by war advance in any single way the slow 
process of humanising a civiHsation which still 

207 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL 

produces in millions the beings who have been 
standing with me here before that poster? No 
— ^I thought — they will certainly reply: "War 
is an evil, but it is necessary; for the human 
race is divided into breeds, distinct from one 
another, and plunged into struggle from their 
births up. Only in each country's jealous preser- 
vation of itself can we look for the welfare of 
the whole. There is no avail in dreams of peace; 
no use in preparation for it; men have always 
killed each other for their own advantage and 
always will; if they did not so kill their neigh- 
bours they could not themselves survive. Life 
is so conditioned; there is not enough for all. 
We know, therefore, that this war must come. 
We see it coming. We have fastened ova eyes 
on it. We cannot get out of its way. We must 
offer ourselves up in holy sacrifice before this 
bloody, predestined monster." 

Well! — I thought — ^if it is sacrifice you want, 
look at that horse ! Look at all the people who 
have stood before this poster! They will take 
all your powers of sacrifice before you have done 
with them! And I, myself, looked at the horse; 
with his bleared eyes and the curves at the cor- 
ners of his mouth, I thought I had never seen 
such a cynical-looking creature. " What are you, 
after all," he seemed to be saying to me, "but a 
set of sanguinary tailless animals?" 

208 



THE WILL TO PEACE 

But suddenly the eyes of my mind travelled 
beyond sight of that poster, and as in a vi- 
sion I seemed to see all the great lives men have 
hved, all the high thoughts they have conceived, 
all their wonderful ingenuity and perseverance 
and strength of will; how they have always 
foimd a way to fulfil that on which they have 
set their hearts. And as background to that 
vision there seemed disclosed to me the untold, 
unexploited wealth of the fields, woods, and 
waters under the sun. And I thought: "What 
that poster says is only true of such as mil it to 
be true. Where there is a mill to peace there is a 
wayj^ War between two such countries, two 
trustees of civiHsation, need not be inevitable. 
To beheve that is to blaspheme, to behttle human 
nature, to deny the Earth/' 

* Note. — I recollect that the journal which this poster served 
to sell contained an article professing to prove that war between 
England and Germany was inevitable, because of the rivalry 
between their trades. I thought then and think now that such 
a reason was blasphemous. In spite of aU the bitter cry for 
commercial war that has now arisen, we did not, and we never 
should have gone to war with Germany for such a reason alone. 
The war that — alas ! — has come, has for us a better, an inspir- 
ing cause. None the less, I freely admit not gauging rightly the 
Btate of mind of Germany's ruling classes. I always thought the 
question of war or no war was a great 'toss-up' between the 
craze for armament and the growth of international feeling 
through social democracy. I thought the latter would win if 
people would set their wiUs on Peace, and we could tide over 
the next few years. I was wrong. — J. G. 



209 



MUCH CRY— LITTLE WOOL. 

II 
PEACE OF THE AIR 

(A letter to The Times, 1911) 

Beyond all the varying symptoms of mad- 
ness in the life of modern nations, the most dread- 
ful is this prostitution of the conquest of the air 
to the ends of warfare. 

If ever men presented a spectacle of sheer 
inanity it is now — ^when, having at long last tri- 
umphed in their struggle to subordinate to their 
welfare the unconquered element, they have 
straightway commenced to defile that element, 
so heroically mastered, by filling it with engines 
of destruction. If ever the gods were justified 
of their ironic smile — ^by the gods, it is now! 
Is there any thinker ahve watching this still ut- 
terly preventable calamity without horror and 
despair? Horror of what must come of it if not 
promptly stopped; despair that men can be so 
bhnd, so hopelessly and childishly the slaves of 
their own marvellous inventive powers. Was 
there ever so patent a case for scotching at birth 
a hideous development of the black arts of war- 
fare; ever such an occasion for the Powers in 
conference to ban once and for all a new and 
ghastly menace? 

210 



PEACE OF THE AIR 

A little reason, a grain of common sense, a 
gleam of sanity before it is too late; before vested 
interests and the chains of a new habit have 
enslaved us too hopelessly. If this fresh devilry 
be not quenched within the next few years, it 
will be too late. Water and earth are wide 
enough for men to kiU each other on. For the 
love of the sun, and stars, and the blue sky, 
that have given us all our aspirations since the 
beginning of time, let us leave the air to inno- 
cence! Will not those who have eyes to see, 
good-will, and the power to put that good-will 
into practice, bestir themselves while there is yet 
time, and save mankind from this last and worst 
of all its foUies? 



211 



THE WAR 



VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 

(From The Nation, 1915) 

God, I am travelling out to death's sea, 

I, who exulted in sunshine and laughter, 
Thought not of d3dng — death is such waste of me! 

Grant me one comfort : Leave not the hereafter 
Of mankind to war, as though I had died not — 

I, who in battle, my comrade's arm hnking. 
Shouted and sang — ^life in my pulses hot 

Throbbing and dancing! Let not my sinking 
In dark be for naught, my death a vain thing! 

God, let me know it the end of man's fever! 
Make my last breath a bugle call, carrying 

Peace o'er the valleys and cold hills, for ever! 



215 



CREDO 

(From The Neutral Press, 1914) 

To love peace with all one^s heart. To feel 
that war is outrage — a black stain on the hu- 
manity and the fame of man. To hate milita- 
rism and the god of force. To go any length to 
avoid war for material interests, war that in- 
volves no principles, distrusting profoundly the 
common meaning of the phrase 'national hon- 
our' — all this is mybehef. 

But there is a national honour charged with 
the future happiness of man; loyalty is due from 
those Hving to those that will come after; civili- 
sation can only wax and flourish in a world 
where faith is kept; for nations, as for individ- 
uals, there are laws of duty, whose violation 
harms the whole human race; in sum, stars of 
conduct shine for peoples, as for private men. 

And so I hold that without tarnishing true 
honour, endangering civilisation present and to 
come, and ruining all hope of future tranquillity, 
my country could not have refused to take up 
arms for the defence of her neighbour Belgium's 
outraged neutrality, which she had solemnly guar- 
anteed. 

216 



CREDO 

I claim, from the trend of events and of na- 
tional character during the last century, that in 
democracy alone Hes any coherent hope of pro- 
gressive civilisation or any chance of lasting 
peace in Europe or the world. 

I beheve that this democratic principle, how- 
ever imperfectly developed, has so worked in 
France, in Britain, in the United States, that 
these coimtries are already nearly safe from in- 
clination to aggress, or to subdue other nation- 
aHties that have reached approximately their 
stage of development. 

And I beheve that while there remain auto- 
cratic governments basing themselves on mih- 
tarism, hostile at heart to the democratic prin- 
ciple, Eiu-ope will never be free of the surcharge 
of swollen armaments, the nightmare menace 
of wars like this — ^the paralysis that creeps on 
civihsations which adore the god of force. 

And so I hold that without betrayal of trustee- 
ship, without shirking the elementary defence 
of behefs coiled within its fibre, or beHefs vital 
to the future welfare of all men, my coimtry 
could not stand by and see the ruin of France, 
that very cradle of democracy. 

I beheve that democratic culture spreads from 
west to east, that only by maintenance of con- 
sohdate democracy in Western Europe can de- 

217 



THE WAU 

mocracy ever hope to push on and prevail till the 
Eastern Powers have also that ideal under which 
alone humanity can flourish. 

And so I hold that my country is justified at 
this jimcture in its alliance with the autocratic 
power of Russia, whose people will never know 
freedom till her borders are joined to the borders 
of a true democracy in Central Em-ope. 

I do not believe that jealous, frightened jingo- 
ism has been more than the dirty fringe of Brit- 
ain's peace-loving temper, and I profess my sacred 
faith that my country has gone to war, against 
her will, but because she must — ^for honour, for 
democracy, and for the future of mankind. 



218 



FRANCE 

(From The Westminster Gazette, 1914) 

France! Beautiful word! Beautiful land! 
What a proud soul lives in that France, now 
racked and tortured ! What chimes will ring when 
the last invader is pushed back over the edge of 
the lost provinces! Land for whom, when you 
are hard driven, the heart most aches ! Is it that 
you are woman, with a caress in your eyes, and 
your floating robe; with mystery in your clear, 
woman's smile, and that promise of eternal con- 
stancy which man never offers ? Is it that in you 
we feel, as in no other land, a presence, such as 
in some houses makes life assured and lovely; a 
presence inhabiting the air of every room, more 
precious than its garniture ? Take away the trap- 
pings, make desolate that place of all material 
things, and there will yet be the loved one, there 
will yet be the gracious, ardent spirit. 

France! You, of all countries, have the gift 
of Living Form, of a coherent grace, like that of 
your own flower of light, or such as haimts La 
Gioconda, hstening to life. 

When I think of you there comes into my 
mind the image of a lime-tree, in her spring garb 

219 



THE WAR 

of buds delicate, breaking to little gay leaves 
ecstatic in each wind; in her summer dress so 
full, so perfumed with honey-coloured blossoms; 
in her autumn robe of few golden leaves, flat on 
the clear air, and trembling, trembling, with each 
breath of the day; and in her pale winter naked- 
ness — ever the same essential goddess of a tree, 
perfect in form. 

France! It is your power to see that "soul in 
things'' which we call ideals, to bring to life the 
truths you have seen, and so to concrete and 
shape your vision that it becomes the rock 
spiritual on which nations stand. Because you 
are the Hving incarnation of your clear, unflinch- 
ing spirit, we others love you. 

You stand before the world, true embodiment 
of your three immortal words, as your immortal 
tune is the true voice of a land's ardom* and de- 
votion. 

You have sloughed off the gross and the vain- 
glorious flesh of nations! You are the flame in 
the night ! In this hour we see, and know you ! 

Great and touching comrade! Clear, invin- 
cible France! To-day, in your grave chivalry, 
you were never so high, so desirable, so true to 
yourself and to Humanity! 



220 



REVEILLE 

(From King Albert's Book, 1914) 

In my dream I saw a fertile plain, rich with 
the hues of autumn. Tranquil it was and warm. 
Men, women, children, and the beasts worked 
and played and wandered there in peace. Under 
the blue sky and the white clouds low-hanging, 
great trees shaded the fields; and from all the 
land rose a murmur as from bees clustering on 
the rose-coloured blossoms of tall clover. In 
my dream, I roamed, looking into faces — ^pros- 
perous and well favoured — of people Hving in a 
land of plenty, drinking the joy of life, caring 
nothing for the morrow. But I could not see 
their eyes, which seemed ever cast down, watching 
the progress of their feet over the rich grass and 
the golden leaves aheady fallen from the trees. 
The longer I walked among them the more I 
wondered that I could see the eyes of none, not 
even of the httle children, not even of the beasts. 

And, while I mused on this, the sky began to 
darken. A mutter as of distant waters came 
travelHng. The children stopped their play, the 
beasts raised their heads; men and women halted 

221 



THE WAR 

and cried to each other: "The River is rising! 
If it floods, we are lost ! Our beasts will drown; 
we, even we, shall drown! The River!'' And 
women stood like images of stone, listening; men 
shook their fists at the black sky, the beasts 
sniffed the darkening air. 

Then I heard a clear Voice call: "Brothers! 
The dike is breaking! Link arms; with the 
dike of our bodies we will save our homes ! Link 
arms behind us. Sisters ! Children, close in ! 
The River!" And all that multitude, whom I 
had seen treading quietly the grass, came hur- 
rying, their eyes no longer fixed on the rich plain, 
but lifted in trouble and defiance. And the 
Voice called: "Hasten! The dike is broken." 

By thousands and thousands they pressed, 
shoulder to shoulder — ^men, women, children, and 
the beasts lying down behind, till the Kving dike 
was formed. And the black flood came travel- 
ling till its wave-crests glinted like the whites of 
glaring eyes, and the harsh clamour of the waters 
was as a roar from a milHon mouths. But the 
Voice called: "Hold, brothers!" And from the 
living dike came answer: "We hold!" 

Then the dark water broke; and from all the 
wall of bodies rose the cry of struggle. 

But above it ever the Voice called: "Hold!" 

And the answer still came from the mouths, 
222 



REVEILLE 

of drowning men and women, of the very chil- 
dren: "We hold !'^ 

But the water rolled over and on. Down in 
its black tumult, beneath its cruel rush, I saw 
men still with arms linked; women on their 
knees, clinging to earth; Httle children drifting 
— all dead. But the shades of the dead with 
arms yet hnked were fronting the edge of the 
savage waters. None had turned away. . . . 

Once more I dreamed. The plain was free of 
darkness, free of waters. The River, shrunk 
and muddied, flowed again within its banks. 
And dawn was breaking. 

At first it seemed to me that only trees stood 
on that plain; then, in the ground mist, fast 
clearing, I saw the forms of men and women, 
children, beasts; and I moved among them, 
looking at their faces — ^not broad and prosper- 
ous, but grave from suffering, carved, and strong. 
And their eyes were shining. 

While I stood thus watching, the sun rose, and, 
above the plain clad in the hues of spring, the 
heaven brightened to fuU morning. Amazed, I 
saw that the stars had not gone in, but shone 
there in the blue. 

And, clear, I heard the same Voice call : "Broth- 
ers ! Behold ! The Stars are lit for ever !" 



223 



FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

(From Scrihner's Magazine, 1914) 
1§ 

Three hundred thousand church spires raised 
to the glory of Christ! Three hundred milhon 
human creatures baptised into his service ! And 
— ^War to the death of them all! "I trust the 
Almighty to give the victory to my arms!'' 
"Let your hearts beat to God, and your fists in 
the face of the enemy!'' "In prayer we call 
God's blessing on our valiant troops!" 

God on the Hps of each potentate, and under 
a hundred thousand spires prayer that twenty- 
two million servants of Christ may receive from 
God the blessed strength to tear and blow each 
other to pieces, to ravage and bum, to wrench 
husbands from wives, fathers from their children, 
to starve the poor, and everywhere destroy the 
works of the spirit! Prayer under the hundred 
thousand spires for the blessed strength of God, to 
use the noblest, most loyal instincts of the human 
race to the ends of carnage ! " God be with us 
to the death and dishonour of our foes" — [whose 
God He is no less than ours!] The God who 

224 



FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

gave His only begotten Son to bring on earth 
peace and good-will toward men ! 

No supernatural creed — ^in these days when 
two and two are put together — can stand against 
such reeling subversion. After this monstrous 
mockery, beneath this grinning skull of irony, 
how shall there remain faith in this personal out- 
side God, whom we can thus divide, appropriate, 
and invoke; how remain faith in the articles, the 
formal structure of a religion preached and prac- 
tised to such ends? When this war is over and 
reason resumes its sway, our dogmas will be foimd 
to have been scored through for ever. Whatever 
else be the outcome of this business, let us at least 
reaHse the truth: It is the death of dogmatic 
Christianity ! Let us will that it be the birth of 
a God within us, and an ethic Christianity that 
men really practise! 



2§ 

Yes ! Dogmatic Christianity was dying before 
this war began. When it is over, or as soon as 
men's reason comes back to them, it will be dead. 
In France, England, Germany, in Belgium, and 
the other small coimtries, dead; and only kept 
wonderingly ahve in Russia and some parts of 

225 



THE WAR 

Austria through peasant simplicity. "Tell me, 
brother, what have the Japanese done to us that 
we should kill them?" — so said the Russian peas- 
ant in the Japanese war. So they may say in this 
war. And at the end go back and resume praise 
of the tribal God who fought for Holy Russia 
against the tribal God who fought for vaHant 
Austria and the mailed fists of Germany. 

This superstitional Christianity will not die 
in the open and be buried with pomp and cere- 
mony; it will merely be dead — a very different 
thing; like the nerve in a tooth, that, to the 
outward eye is just as it was. That which will 
take its place has already been a long time pre- 
paring to come forward. It will be too much 
in earnest to care for forms and ceremonies. And 
one thing is certain — ^it wiU be far more Chris- 
tian than the so-called Christianity which has 
brought us to these present ends. Its creed will 
be a noiseless and passionate conviction that 
man can be saved, not by a far-away, despotic 
God who can be enhsted by each combatant for 
the destruction of his foes, but by the divine ele- 
ment in man, the God within the human soul. 
That, in proportion as man is high, so will the 
life of man be high, safe from shames Hke this, 
and devoid of his old misery. The creed will be 
a fervent, almost secret application of the say- 

226 



FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

ing: ''Love thy neighbour as thyself !'' It will 
be ashamed of appeals to God to put right that 
which man has bungled; of supphcations to the 
deity to fight against the deity. It will have the 
pride of the artist and the artisan. And it will 
have its own mysticism, its own wonder, and 
reverence for the mystery of the all-embracing 
Principle which has produced such a creature as 
this man, with such marvellous potentiality for 
the making of fine things, and the Hving of fine 
fives; such heroism, such savagery; such wis- 
dom and such black stupidity; such a queer in- 
superable instinct for going on and on and ever 
on ! 



3§ 

The Western world has had its lesson now — 
the lesson indelibly writ in death: There is no 
longer room in civilisation for despotic govern- 
ments. In Germany, in Austria, in the country 
where despotism most reigns supreme — our ally, 
Russia — ^they are doomed in theory, if not as yet 
in fact. 

The Slav is no more by nature the enemy of 
the Teuton than the Briton of the Frank. That 
enmity is a fostered thing of imperial and bu- 
reaucratic dreams, 

227 



THE WAR 

What stands out from all this welter? The 
ambitious diplomacy of the despotic powers, in 
pursuit of so-called "national ideals/' a diplo- 
macy begotten of vicious traditions and the 
misconceptions of egomania, removed by a ring 
fence from the people of the nations for whom 
it professes to speak. An ambitious and cynical 
diplomacy, battening on the knowledge that it 
can at almost any time raise for its ends a whirl- 
wind of feeling out of the love men ever have for 
the land wherein they are born. 

It is the divorce of executive power from 
popular sanction that has made possible this 
greatest of aU the disasters in history. In demo- 
cratic countries the aggressive faculty is imper- 
ceptibly yet continually weakened by the obscure 
but real link between ministers-elect and the 
people. Only in those countries where, under a 
cloak perhaps of democratic forms, the admin- 
istrative force is responsible to none save an im- 
perial director, is a ruthless and unchecked pur- 
suit of so-called national dreams, an aggressive 
parade of so-called national honour, possible. 

If only despotisms, autocracies — ^masquerading 
or naked — ^go down in' the wreckage of this war ! 



228 



FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 



4§ 

The superstition that unmilitarised nations suf- 
fer from fatty degeneration of the heart has per- 
ished in the forty-fourth year of its age, at the 
siege of Liege, blown away by the heroism of a 
Httle unmihtary nation ! 

Democracy and citizen armies ! If this war 
brings that in its train its horror wiU not have 
been all hateful. But so surely as states remain 
autocratic at heart, will the dire spirit that ani- 
mates almighty bureaucracy rear its head again 
and demand revenge. So surely will this war 
bring another, and yet another! In these last 
twenty years civiHsation has not even marked 
time; it has gone backward under the curb and 
pressure of professional armaments masquerading 
under the words: "Si vis pacem, para bellum.^' 
The principle of universal service by men not 
professionally soldiers, the principle that no man 
shall be called to fight one step outside his native 
land — save as part of an international pohce to en- 
force the authority of a League for Peace — these 
are the only principles that wiU in the future still 
the gnawings of anxiety and gradually guaran- 
tee the peace of the West. They are principles 
that; I fear, will never obtain while states are 

229 



THE WAR 

subject to military bureaucracy and dynastic 
ambitions. If they cannot be purged of them, 
we are ^doomed to something great' every gen- 
eration — the greatness of the shambles! It is 
enough to make heart stand still and brain reel 
for ever if one must beHeve that man is never to 
find better means of keeping his spirit from rust, 
his body from decay, than these sporadic out- 
bursts of ' greatness/ " War is the only cleanser ! " 
Ah ! because the word patriotism has so Hmited 
a meaning. But — ^to beheve that this must al- 
ways be . . . ! When men have ceased to look 
on war as the proper vehicle for self-sacrifice, will 
they not turn to a greatness that is not soaked 
with blood and black with the crows of death, to 
save their souls aHve? Will there not, can there 
not, arise an emotion as strong as this present 
patriotism — a sentiment as passionate and sweep- 
ing, bearing men on to the use of every faculty 
and the forgetfulness of self, for the salvation, 
instead of the destruction of their fellow men? 
Or is this a dream, and are we for ever doomed, 
each generation, to the greatness of tearing each 
other limb from Hmb? 



230 



FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 



5§ 

Three weeks before this war began I was in 
one of those East End London parishes, whose 
inhabitants exist from hand to mouth on casual 
employment and sweated laboiu*; where the 
women, poor, thin, overworked souls, have neither 
time nor strength nor inclination for cleanliness 
and comehness in person or house; where the men 
are undersized and underfed, with the faces of 
those without a future; where pale and stunted 
children playing in the gutters have a monopoly 
of any mirthless gaiety there is. 

In one household of two rooms they were "free 
of debt, thank Gawd!'' having just come back 
from fruit-picking, and were preparing to take up 
family existence again on the wife's making of 
match-boxes at a maximum of six shillings a week, 
the husband not having found a job as yet. In 
another household, of one room swarming with 
flies and foul with a sickly, acrid odour, a baby 
half asleep on the few rags of a bed bereft of bed- 
clothes, its Hps pressed to something rubbery, 
and flies about its eyes; dirty bowls of messes 
stood about; an offal heap lay in the empty 
grate; and at a table in the little window a 
pallid woman of forty with a running cold was 

231 



THE WAR 

desperately sewing the soles on to tiny babies' 
shoes. Beside her was a small dirty boy, who had 
just been lost and brought home by a policeman, 
because he remembered the name of the street 
he lived in. The woman looked up at us wist- 
fully, and said: "I thought I'd lost 'im, too, I 
did; like the one that fell in the canal.'' Though 
she still had seven, though her husband was out 
of work, though she only made five to six shillings 
a week, she could not spare any of the children 
she had borne. 

Prices have gone up. What is happening to 
such as these? They or their like exist in all 
countries. You military biu-eaucrats who safe- 
guard and pursue "national aspirations," who open 
the gates of the kennel and let loose these mad 
dogs of war; who rive husbands from their wives, 
sons from their mothers, and send them out by 
the hundred thousand to become lumps of bloody 
clay — spare a fraction of time to see the peoples 
for "whose good" you laimch this glorious mur- 
der; come and sniff for one moment that sickly, 
acrid smell in the homes of the poor ! And then 
talk of national aspirations and necessities ! 

There is only one national aspiration worth the 
name, only one national necessity. To have 
from roof to basement a clean, healthy, happy 
national house. "War the cleanser! Without 

232 



FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

war — ^no sacrifice; no nobility!'' I refer you to 
that mother, slaving without hope and without 
glory, starved and ill, and slaving in a war with 
death that lasts all her life, for the children she 
has borne. 



6§ 

The Russian people is not Russia, unless it 
should become so in this war. There has been 
hitherto an almost absolute divorce between the 
essentially democratic nature of the Russian and 
the despotic methods by which Russia is governed. 
We English and French, fighting not only for our 
lives, but for democracy, for the decent preser- 
vation of treaty rights, and a humanity that we 
believe can only flourish under democratic rule, 
find it somewhat ironical that we have with us a 
despotism. And there is a profound reason why 
it has been and will be difl&cult for Russia to 
change its form of government. The emotional, 
uncalculating Russian has Httle sense of money, 
space, or time; he falls an easy prey to those 
sterner, more matter-of-fact than himself. Bu- 
reaucracy attracts the hard and practical ele- 
ments of a population; there are, or were, many 
of Teutonic origin manning Russian officialdom. 
And Russia is so huge; democratic rule wiU 

233 



THE WAR 

find it difficult to be swift enough; in decen- 
tralisation there is danger of disruption. Never- 
theless, we welcome the help of Russia, for, if 
France and we were beaten, it would not only be 
our own deaths, but the death of democracy and 
humanism in Europe — ^perhaps in the world. The 
tide of democracy sets from the West. It must 
permeate Germany before it reaches Russia. Out 
of this war many things may come. If Fate 
grant that military despotisms fall in any coun- 
try, they may well fall in all, and our ally, Russia, 
gain at last a constitution and some real measure 
of democratic freedom, some real coherence be- 
tween the Russian people and Russian policy. 



7§ 

When the conscript souls disembodied by this 
war meet, if they meet at all, how will they talk 
of this last madness? Perhaps one in each hun- 
dred will be able to say from his heart: "I was 
happy with a rifle or sword and some of you to 
be killed in front of me !'^ The remaining ninety- 
nine will say: "Like you I loved the sun, and a 
woman, and the good things of life; like you I 
meant well by others; I had no wish to kill any 
man; no wish to die. But I was told that it was 

234 



FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

necessary. I was told that unless I killed as many 
of you as I could, my country would suffer. I 
don't know whether in my heart I believed what 
I was told, but I did know that I should feel dis- 
graced if I did not take rifle and sword and try- 
to kiU some of you; I knew, too, that unless I 
did, they would shoot me for a deserter. So I 
went. Nearly all the time that I was marching, 
or resting dead tired, or lying in the trenches, I 
thought: 'Shall I ever see home again? Let 
me see home again!' But I knew that my 
first duty was to kill you, so that you should 
never see home again, I did not want to kill 
you, but I knew I had to. When I was under 
fire or tired or himgry, it is true I hated you so 
that I had only a savage wish to kill you. But 
when it was over I had an ache in my heart. 
We used to sing while marching, make jokes, 
enjoy the feel of our comrades' shoulders touching 
our own, say to ourselves: 'We're fine fellows, 
serving oiu- country, doing our duty!' But still 
the ache went on underneath, very deep, as if 
one were asleep and could not come to the end of 
a bad dream. We seldom knew what our bullets 
were doing, but sometimes we came to fighting 
hand to hand. The first time, I remember, we 
had advanced through a wood under shell-fire, 
and were lying down at the edge. I had that 

235 



THE WAR 

ache all the time I was coining through the wood; 
it was a fine day, and the larches smelled sweet. 
But when I saw you charging down on us with the 
sun gleaming on your bayonets, it left me; I 
felt weak and queer down the backs of my legs, 
wondering which of you, yelling and running 
toward me, would plimge his steel into my stom- 
ach. Then my officer shouted; I fired once, 
twice, three times, and began to run forward. 
If I had not, I should have turned and fled. I did 
not feel savage, but I knew I must move every 
bit of me as quick as I could, and defend myself 
and stab. Then our supports came through the 
wood, and you were beaten. My bayonet was 
bloody. One or more of you I must have killed; 
I had been brave, we had won; I felt excited and 
yet sick. In the evening, when I lay down, my 
ache was worse than ever. All my life I had 
been taught that to kill a fellow man was the 
worst thing man can do; it did not come natural 
to me to kill. It was having to risk my life so 
dear to me, in order that I might kill, that gave 
me that ache. If I had been risking it trying to 
save you, it would have been more natural; I 
should not have ached then!'' 



236 



FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 



8§ 

"The glories of war!" 

Courage, devotion, endurance, contempt of 
death! These are glories that the unmartial 
may not deride. Even the humblest of brave 
soldiers is a hero, for aU that his heroism coins 
the misery of others; but what does the soldier 
know, see, feel of the real ^'glories of war"? 
That knowledge is confined to the readers of 
newspapers and books! The pressman, the 
romancer, the historian can with glowing pen 
call up in the reader a feeHng that war is glorious; 
that there is something in itseK desirable and to 
be admired in that licensed murder, arson, rob- 
bery, that we caU war. Glorious war! Every 
penny thrill of each reader of the newspaper, 
every spasm of each one who sees armed men 
passing, or hears the fifes and drums, is manu- 
factured out of blood and groans, wrung out of the 
torments of the human heart and the torture of 
human flesh. 

When I read in the paper of some glorious charge 
and the great slaughter of the enemy, I feel a 
thrill through every fibre. It is grand, it is splen- 
did! I take a deep breath of joy, almost of 
rapture. Grand, splendid! That there should 

237 



THE WAR 

be lying, with their faces haggard to the stars, 
hundreds, thousands of men hke myself, better 
men than myself! Hundreds, thousands, who 
loved life as much as I; whose women loved 
them as much as mine love me ! Grand, splen- 
did! That the blood should be oozing from 
them into grass that once smelled as sweet to 
them as it does to me ! That their eyes, which 
delighted in sunhght and beauty as much as 
mine, should be glazing fast with death; that 
their mouths, which mothers and wives and chil- 
dren are aching to kiss again, should be twisted 
into gaps of horror! Grand, splendid! That 
other men, no more savage than myself, should 
have strewn them there ! Grand, splendid ! That 
in thousands of far-off houses women, children, 
and old men will soon be quivering with an- 
guished memories of those lying there dead. . . . 
Pressmen, romancers, historians — ^you have 
given me a noble thrill in recounting these glories 
of war ! 



9§ 

This is the grand defeat of all Utopians, dream- 
ers, poets, philosophers, idealists, humanitarians, 
lovers of peace and the arts; bag and baggage 
they are thrown out of a world that has for a 

238 



FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

time no use for them. To the despot, the bureau- 
crat, the mihtarist, the man of affairs they have 
always been hateful. They are soft, yet danger- 
ous, because they venture to hold up another 
flag in the face of the big flag of force; venture 
to distract men's attention from dwelling on the 
beauty of its size. I beHeve solenmly that we 
English have had to join this carnival of force to 
guard democracy, honour, and the sanctity of 
treaty rights. It was a sacred necessity; let us 
keep it sacred, without the lothsome reek of a 
satisfaction that peace, humanism, and the arts 
are down, and the country once more showing 
the stuff of which it is made, a tusky lover of a 
fight, as jealous and afraid of a rival as ever. 

The idealist said in his heart: The god of force 
is dead, or dying. He has been proven the fool 
that the man of affairs and the militarist always 
said he was. But the fools of this world — gen- 
erally after they are gone — ^have a way of moving 
men which the wise and practical believers in 
force have not. If they had not this power man 
would stiU be, year in, year out, the savage that 
the believers in force have for the moment once 
more made him. The battle between the god of 
love and the god of force endures for ever. Fools 
of the former camp, drummed out and beaten to 
their knees, in due time wiU get up again and 

239 



THE WAR 

plant their poor flag a little farther on. "All men 
shall be brothers/' said the German fool, Schiller; 
so shall the fools say again when the time comes; 
and again, and again, after every beating ! 



10 § 

Last night, when the half-moon was golden 
and the white stars very high, I saw the souls of 
the killed, passing. They came riding through 
the dark; some on gray horses, some on black; 
they came marching, white-faced; himdreds, thou- 
sands, tens of thousands. 

The night smelled sweet, the breeze rustled, 
the stream murmured; and past me on the air 
the souls of the killed came marching. They 
seemed of one great company, no longer enemies. 
All had the same fixed stare, braving something 
strange that they were trying terribly to push 
away. All had their eyes narrowed, yet fixed-open 
in their gray-white, smoke-grimed faces. They 
made no sound as they passed. Whence were 
they coming, where going, trailing the ghosts of 
guns, riding the ghosts of horses; into what river 
of oblivion — ^far from horror and the savagery of 
man! 

They passed. The golden half-moon shone, 
240 



FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

and the high white stars. The fields smelled sweet ; 
the wind gently stirred the trees. The moon and 
stars would be shining over the battle-fields, the 
wind rustling the trees there, the earth sleeping 
in dark beauty. So would it be, all over the 
Western world. The peace of God doth indeed 
pass our understanding ! 



241 



THE HOPE OF LASTING PEACE 

(From a Symposium on Nationality, 1915) 

In these times one dread lies heavy on heart 
and brain — ^the thought that after all the unim- 
aginable suffering, waste, and sacrifice of this 
war nothing may come of it, no real relief, no 
permanent benefit to Europe, no improvement to 
the future of mankind. 

The pronouncements of publicists: "This must 
never happen again,^^ "Conditions for abiding 
peace must be secured," "The United States of 
Europe must be founded," "Militarism must 
cease" — all such are the natural outcome of this 
dread. They are proclamations admirable in 
sentiment and intention. But human nature be- 
ing what it has been and is likely to remain, we 
must face the possibility that nothing will come 
of the war, save the restoration of Belgium (that, 
at least, is certain) ; some alterations of boundaries; 
a long period of economic and social trouble more 
bitter than before; a sweeping moral reaction 
after too great effort. Cosmically regarded, this 
war is a debauch rather than a purge, and de- 
bauches have always to be paid for. 

Confronting the situation in this spirit, we shall 
242 



THE HOPE OF LASTING PEACE 

be the more rejoiced if any of our wider hopes 
should by good fortune be attained. 

Leaving aside the restoration of Belgium — for 
what do we continue to fight? We go on, as we 
began, because we all believe in our own coun- 
tries and what they stand for. And in considering 
how far the principle of nationality should be 
exalted, one must remember that it is in the main 
responsible for the present state of things. In 
truth, the principle of nationality of itself and by 
itself is a quite insufficient ideal. It is a mere 
glorification of self in a world full of other selves; 
and only of value in so far as it forms part of that 
larger ideal, an international ethic, which admits 
the claims and respects the aspirations of all na- 
tions. Without that ethic Httle nations are (as 
at the present moment) the prey — and, accord- 
ing to the naked principle of nationality, the 
legitimate prey — of bigger nations. Germany 
absorbed Schleswig, Alsace-Lorraine, and now 
Belgium, by virtue of nationalism, of an over- 
weening belief in the perfection of its national self. 
Austria would subdue Serbia from much the same 
feeling. France does not wish to absorb or sub- 
due any European people of another race, because 
France, as ever, a little in advance of her age, is 
already groimded in this international ethic, of 
solid respect for the rights of all nations which 

243 



THE WAR 

belong, broadly speaking, to the same stage of den 
velopment. The same may now be said of the other 
Western democratic powers, Britain and America, 
"To live and let live/' "To dwell together in 
unity/' are the guiding maxims of the interna- 
tional ethic, by virtue of which alone have the 
smaller communities of men — ^the Belgiums, Bo- 
hemias, Polands, Serbias, Denmarks, Irelands, 
Switzerlands of Europe — any chance of security 
in the maintenance of their national existences. 
In short, the principle of nationality, unless it is 
prepared to serve this international ethic, is but 
a frank abettor of the devilish maxim: "Might is 
right." All this is truism; but truisms are often 
the first things we forget. 

The whole question of nationality in Europe 
bristles with difficulties. It cannot be solved by 
theory and rule of thumb. What is a nation? 
Shall it be determined by speech, by blood, by 
geographical boundary, by historic tradition? 
The freedom and independence of a coxmtry can 
and ever should be assured when with one voice 
it demands the same. It is seldom so simple as 
that. Belgium, no doubt, is as one man in that 
demand. Poland as one man in so far as the 
Poles are concerned, but what of the Austrians, 
Russians, Germans settled among them? What 
of Ireland split into two camps? What of the 

244 



THE HOPE OF LASTING PEACE 

Germans in Bohemia; in Alsace; in Schleswig? 
Compromise alone is possible in many cases, 
going by favour of majority. And there will 
always remain the very poignant question of the 
rights and aspirations of the minorities. Let us 
by all means clear the air by righting glaring 
wrongS; removing palpable anomahes, redressing 
obvious injustices, securing so far as possible the 
independent national life of homogeneous groups; 
but let us not, dazzled by the glamour of a word, 
dream that by restoring a few landmarks, alter- 
ing a few boundaries, and raising a psean to the 
word nationahty, we can banish all clouds from 
the sky of Europe and muzzle the ambitions of 
the stronger nations. 

In my belief the best hope for lasting peace, 
the chief promise of security for the rights and 
freedom of little countries, the most reasonable 
guarantee of international justice and general 
humanity, lies in the gradual growth of democ- 
racy, of rule by consent of the governed. When 
Europe is all democratic, and its civiHsation on 
one plane — instead of as now on two — then and 
then only we shall begin to draw the breath of 
real assurance. Then only will the Uttle coun- 
tries sleep quietly in their beds. It is conceiv- 
able, nay, probable, that an ideal autocracy could 
achieve more good for its country and for the 

245 



THE WAR 

world at large in a given time than the rule of the 
most enlightened democracy. It is certain that 
ideal autocracies hold sway but once in a blue 
moon. 

If proof be needed that the prevalence of de- 
mocracy will end aggression among nations that 
belong to the same stage of development, secure 
the rights of small peoples, foster justice and 
hiunaneness in man — ^let the history of this last 
century and a haK be well and not superficially 
examined, and let the human probabilities be 
weighed. Which is the more likely to advocate 
wars of aggression? They, who by age, position, 
wealth, are secure against the daily pressure of 
life, they who have passed their time out of touch 
with the struggle for existence, in an atmosphere 
of dreams, ambitions, and power over other men ? 
Or they who every hour are reminded how hard 
life is, even at its most prosperous moments, who 
have nothing to gain by war, and all, even life, 
to lose; who by virtue of their own struggles have 
a deep knowledge of the struggles of their fellow 
creatures; an instinctive repugnance to making 
those struggles harder; who have heard little and 
dreamed less of those so-called "national inter- 
ests,'^ that are so often mere chimeras; who love, 
no doubt, in their inarticulate way, the country 
where they were born and the modes of life and 

246 



THE HOPE OF LASTING PEACE 

thought to which they are accustomed, but know 
of no traditional and artificial reasons why the 
men of other countries should not be allowed to 
love their own lands and modes of thought and 
life in equal peace and security? 

Assuredly, the latter of these two kinds of men 
are the less likely to favour ambitious projects 
and aggressive wars. According as "the people," 
through their representatives, have or have not 
the final decision in such matters, the future of 
Europe shall be made of war or peace, of respect 
or of disregard for the rights of little nations. 

It is advanced against democracies that the 
workers of a country, ignorant and provincial 
in outlook, have no grasp of international politics. 
True — in a Europe where national ambitions 
and dreams are still for the most part hatched 
and nurtured in nests perched high above the 
real needs and sentiments of the simple working 
folk who form nine-tenths of the population in 
each country. But once those nests of aggres- 
sive nationalism have fallen from their high trees, 
so soon as all Europe conforms to the principle 
of rule by consent of the governed, it will be 
found — as it has already been found in France 
and in this country — ^that the general sense of 
the community informed by growing publicity 
(through means of communication ever speeding 

247 



THE WAR 

up) is quite sufficient trustee of national safety; 
quite able, even enthusiastically able, to defend 
its country from attack. 

It is said that democracies are liable to be swept 
by gusts of passion, in danger of yielding to press 
or mob sentiment. But are not the peoples of 
democratic countries as firmly counselled and 
held in check by their responsible ministers and 
elected representatives as are the peoples of 
autocratically governed countries? What power 
of initiative have "the people" in either case? 
They act only through their leaders. But their 
leaders are elected — that is the point. 

There are just these real differences, however: 
Representative governments must answer for their 
initiative to their fellow men. Autocratic govern- 
ments need only answer to their gods. The eyes 
of representative governments are turned habitu- 
ally inward toward the condition of 'Hhe people" 
whom they represent. The eyes of autocratic 
governments may indeed be turned inward, but 
what they usually see of "the people" whom 
they do not represent is liable to make them turn 
outward. In other words, they find in successful 
foreign adventure and imperialism a potent safe- 
guard against internal troubles. 

The problem before the world at the end of 
this war is how to eliminate the virus of an ag- 

248 



THE HOPE OF LASTING PEACE 

gressive nationalism that will lead to fresh out- 
bursts of death. It is a problem that I, for one, 
fear wiU beat the powers and good-will of all, un- 
less there should come a radical change of govern- 
ments in Central Eiu-ope; unless the real power 
in Germany and Austria-Himgary passes into the 
hands of the people of those countries, through 
their elected representatives, as already it has 
passed in France and Britain. This is in my belief 
the only chance for the defeat of militarism, of 
that raw nationalism, which, even if beaten down 
at first, will ever be lying in wait, preparing secret 
revenge and fresh attacks. How this democrati- 
sation of Central Europe can be brought about I 
cannot tell. It is far off as yet. But if this be 
not at long last the outcome of the war, we may 
still, I fear, talk in vain of the rights of little na- 
tions, of peace, disarmament, of chivalry, justice, 
and humanity. We may whistle for a changed 
Europe. 



249 



DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 

(From the Amsterdamer Revue, 1915) 

After many months of war, search for the cause 
thereof borders on the academic. Comment on 
the physical facts of the situation does not come 
within the scope of one who by disposition and 
training is concerned with states of mind. 

But as to the result! The period of surprise 
is over; the forces known; the issue fully joined. 
It is now a case of "Pull devil, pull baker !'^ and 
a question of the fibre of the combatants. For 
this reason it may not be amiss to try to present 
to any whom it may concern as detached a pic- 
ture as one can of the real nature of that com- 
batant who is called the Englishman. Ignorance 
in Central Europe of his character tipped the bal- 
ance in favour of war, and speculation as to the 
future is useless without right comprehension of 
his nature. 

The Englishman is taken advisedly, because he 
represents four-fifths of the population of the 
British Isles. 

And first let it be said that there is no more 
imconsciously deceptive person on the face of the 

250 



DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 

globe. The Englishman does not know himself; 
outside England he is but guessed at. 

Racially the Englishman is so complex and so 
old a blend, that no one can say what he is. In 
character he is just as complex. Physically, there 
are two main types; one inclining to length of 
limb, narrowness of face and head (you will see 
nowhere such long and narrow heads as in our 
islands) and bony jaws; the other approximat- 
ing more to the ordinary 'John Bull.' The first 
type is gaining on the second. There is little or 
no difference in the main character behind. 

In attempting to understand the real nature 
of the Enghshman, certain saHent facts must be 
borne in mind. 

The Sea. To be surrounded generation after 
generation by the sea has developed in him a 
suppressed idealism, a peculiar impermeability, 
a turn for adventure, a faculty for wandering, 
and for being sufficient unto himself, in far and 
awkward surroundings. 

The Climate. Whoso weathers for centuries 
a climate that, though healthy and never extreme, 
is, perhaps, the least rehable and one of the wettest 
in the world, must needs grow in himself a counter- 
balance of dry philosophy, a defiant humour, an 
enforced medium temperature of soul. The Eng- 
lishman is no more given to extremes than is his 

251 



THE WAR 

climate; against its damp and perpetual changes 
he has become coated with a sort of blmit- 
ness. 

The Political Age of His Country. This 
is by far the oldest settled Western Power, po- 
litically speaking. For eight hundred and fifty 
years England has known no serious military dis- 
turbance from without; for nearly two hundred 
she has known no serious political turmoil within. 
This is partly the outcome of her isolation, partly 
the happy accident of her political constitution, 
partly the result of the Englishman's habit of look- 
ing before he leaps, which comes, no doubt, from 
the climate, and the mixture of his blood. This 
political stabihty has been a tremendous factor 
in the formation of English character, has given 
the Englishman of all ranks a certain deep, slow 
sense of form and order, an ingrained culture — ^if 
one may pirate the word — that makes no show, 
being in the bones of the man as it were. 

The Great Preponderance for Several 
Generations op Town Over Country Life. 
Taken in conjunction with centuries of poHtical 
stability, this is the main cause of a growing, 
inarticulate humaneness, of which — speaking not 
with the voice of the Press — ^the Englishman ap- 
pears to be rather ashamed. 

The Public Schools. This potent element in 
252 



DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 

the formation of the modem EngHshman, not 
only in the upper but of all classes, is something 
that one rather despairs of making understood — 
in countries which have no similar institution. 
But: Imagine one hundred thousand youths of 
the wealthiest; healthiest, and most influential 
classes, passed, during each generation, at the 
most impressionable age, into a sort of ethical 
motild, emerging therefrom stamped to the core 
with the impress of an uniform morality, uniform 
manners, uniform way of looking at life; remem- 
bering always that these youths fill seven-eighths 
of the important positions in the professional 
administration of their country and the conduct 
of its commercial enterprise; remembering, too, 
that through perpetual contact with every other 
class, their standard of morality and way of 
looking at life filters down into the very toes of 
the land. This great character-forming machine 
is remarkable for an unseK-consciousness which 
gives it enormous strength and elasticity. Not 
inspired by the state, it inspires the state. The 
characteristics of the philosophy it enjoins are 
mainly negative, and, for that, the stronger. 
''Never show your feeHngs — ^to do so is not manly, 
and bores your fellows. Don't cry out when 
you're hurt, making yourself a nuisance to other 
people. Tell no tales about your companions, and 

253 



THE WAR 

no lies about yourself. Avoid all 'swank/ 'side/ 
'swagger/ braggadocio of speech or manner, on 
pain of being laughed at." (This maxim is carried 
to such a pitch that the Englishman, except in 
his press, habitually imderstates everything.) 
"Think httle of money, and speak less of it. 
Play games hard, and keep the rules of them, 
even when your blood is hot and you are tempted 
to disregard them. In three words: Play the 
Game" — a little phrase which may be taken as 
the characteristic understatement of the modern 
Englishman's creed of honour, in all classes. 
This great, imconscious machine has great defects. 
It tends to the formation of "caste"; it is a poor 
teacher of sheer learning; and, aesthetically, with 
its universal suppression of all interesting and 
queer individual traits of personality — ^it is almost 
horrid. Yet it imparts a remarkable incorrupti- 
bility to English life; it conserves vitality, by 
suppressing all extremes; and it implants every- 
where a kind of unassuming stoicism and respect 
for the rules of the great game — Life. Through 
its unconscious example, and through its cult of 
games, it has vastly influenced even the classes 
not directly under its control. 

Three more main facts must be borne in mind: 
Essential Democracy of Government. 
Freedom of Speech and the Press. 
254 



DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 

Absence Hitherto of Compulsory Mili- 
tary Service. 

These, the outcome of the quiet and stable 
home life of an island people, have done more 
than anything to make the EngHshman a decep- 
tive personahty to the outside eye. He has for 
centuries been licensed to grumble. There is 
no such confirmed grumbler — until he really has 
something to grumble at; and then, no one per- 
haps who grumbles less. There is no such con- 
firmed carper at the condition of his country, yet 
no one really so profoxmdly convinced that it is 
the best in the world. A stranger might well 
think from his utterances that he was spoiled by 
the freedom of his life, unprepared to sacrifice 
anything for a land in such a condition. Threaten 
that country, and with it his hberty, and you will 
find that his grumbles have meant less than 
nothing. You will find, too, that behind the ap- 
parent slackness of every arrangement and every 
individual, are powers of adaptability to facts, 
elasticity, practical genius, a spirit of competition 
amounting almost to disease, and a determina- 
tion that are staggering. Before this war began, 
it was the fashion among a number of English 
to lament the decadence of the race. These 
very grumblers are now foremost in praising the 
spirit shown in every part of their country. 

255 



THE WAR 

Their lamentations, which plentifully deceived 
the outside ear, were just Enghsh grumbles; 
for if, in truth, England had been decadent, 
there could have been no such universal display 
for them to be praising now. All this democratic 
grumbling, and habit of "going as you please,'' 
serve a deep purpose. Autocracy, censorship, 
compulsion destroy humour m sl nation's blood 
and elasticity in its fibre; they cut at the very- 
mainsprings of national vitality. Only if reason- 
ably free from control can a man really arrive at 
what is or is not national necessity; and truly 
identify himseK with a national ideal, by simple 
conviction from within. 

Two words of caution to strangers trying to 
form an estimate of the Englishman: He must 
not be judged from his press, which, manned 
(with certain exceptions) by those who are not 
typically English, is much too highly coloured to 
illustrate the true English spirit; nor can he be 
judged from his literature. The Englishman is 
essentially inexpressive, unexpressed. Further, 
he must not be judged by the evidence of his 
wealth. England may be the richest country in 
the world per head of population, but not five 
per cent of that population have any wealth to 
speak of, certainly not enough to have affected 
their hardihood; and, with inconsiderable ex- 

256 



DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 

ceptions, those who have enough are brought up 
to worship hardihood. For the vast proportion 
of EngHshmen, active military service is merely 
a change from work as hard, and even more 
monotonous. 

From these main premises, then, we come to 
what the Englishman really is. 

When, after months of travel, one returns to 
England, he can taste, smell, and feel the dif- 
ference in the atmosphere, physical and moral — 
the ciuious, damp, blunt, good-humoured, happy- 
go-lucky, old-estabHshed, slow-seeming formless- 
ness of everything. You hail a porter; if you 
tell him you have plenty of time — ^he muddles 
your things amiably, with an air of "It'U be all 
right,^' till you have only just time. But if you 
tell him you have no time — ^he will set himself to 
catch that train for you, and catch it faster than 
a porter of any other country. Let no foreigner, 
however, experiment to prove the truth of this, 
for a porter — ^like any other Enghshman — is in- 
capable of taking a foreigner seriously (after a 
year of war he had not even yet taken the Germans 
seriously) ; and quite friendly, but a little pitying, 
will lose him the train, assm-ing the unfortunate 
that he can't possibly know what train he wants 
to catch. 

The Englishman must have a thing brought 
257 



THE WAR 

under his nose before he will act; bring it there 
and he will go on acting after everybody else has 
stopped. He lives very much in the moment, 
because he is essentially a man of facts and not a 
man of imagination. Want of imagination makes 
him, philosophically speaking, rather ludicrous; 
in practical affairs it handicaps him at the start; 
but once he has "got going" — as we say — ^it is 
of incalculable assistance to his stamina. The 
Englishman, partly through this lack of imagina- 
tion and nervous sensibility, partly through his 
inbred dislike of extremes, and habit of mini- 
mising the expression of everything, is a perfect 
example of the conservation of energy. It is 
very difficult to come to the end of him. Add to 
this, his imimaginative practicality and tenacious 
moderation, his inherent spirit of competition — 
not to say pugnacity — so strong that it will often 
show through the coating of his ' Take it or leave 
it,^ half -surly, half-good-humoured manner — a 
spirit of competition so extreme that it makes 
him, as it were, patronise Fate; add a peculiar, 
ironic, 'don't care' sort of humour; an under- 
ground humaneness, and an ashamed idealism — 
and you get some notion of the pudding of Eng- 
Hsh character. It has a kind of terrible coolness, 
a rather awful level-headedness — by no means 
reflected in his press. The Englishman makes 

258 



DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 

constant smaU blunders; but few, almost no, 
deep mistakes. He is a slow starter, but there 
is no stronger finisher, because he has by tem- 
perament and training the faculty of getting 
through any job he gives his mind to with a 
minimum expenditure of vital energy; nothing 
is wasted in expression, style, spread-eagleism; 
everything is instinctively kept as near to the 
practical heart of the matter as possible. He is 
— ^to the eyes of an artist — distressingly matter- 
of-fact, a temptiQg mark for satire. And yet he 
is at bottom an ideaHst; though it is his nature to 
snub, disguise, and mock his own inherent opti- 
mism. To admit enthusiasm is "bad form'' if he 
is a "gentleman''; and "swank," or mere waste 
of good heat, if he is not a "gentleman." Eng- 
land produces more than its proper percentage 
of cranks and poets; this is Nature's way of re- 
dressing the balance in a country where feelings 
are not shown, sentiments not expressed, and ex- 
tremes laughed at. Not that the Englishman 
is cold, as is generally supposed — on the con- 
trary, he is warm-hearted and feels strongly; 
but just as peasants, for lack of words to ex- 
press their feehngs, become stolid, so does the 
Englishman, from sheer lack of the habit of seK- 
expression. The Englishman's proverbial 'hypoc- 
risy' — ^that which I myself have dubbed hi« 'i&- 

259 



THE WAR 

land Pharisaism ' — comes chiefly, I think, from his 
latent but fearfully strong instinct for competi- 
tion, which will not let him admit himself beaten 
or in the wrong even to himself; and from an in- 
grained sense of form that impels him always to 
'save his face'; but partly it comes from his pow- 
erlessness to express his feelings. He has not the 
clear and fluent cynicism of expansive natures 
wherewith to confess exactly how he stands. It 
is the habit of men of all nations to want to have 
things both ways; the Englishman wants it both 
ways, I think, more strongly than any; and he is 
unfortunately so unable to express himself even to 
himself J that he has never reaHsed this truth, 
much less confessed it — ^hence his 'hypocrisy.' 

He is sometimes abused for being over-attached 
to money. His island position, his early dis- 
coveries of coal, iron, and processes of manufac- 
ture have made him, of course, a confirmed in- 
dustrialist and trader; but he is more of an 
adventurer iq wealth than a heaper-up of it. 
He is far from sitting on his money-bags — ^has 
no vein of proper avarice (the humble English- 
man is probably the least provident man in the 
world), and for national ends he will spill out his 
money like water, if convinced of the necessity. 

In everything it comes to that with the Eng- 
lishman — ^he must be convinced; and he takes 

260 



DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 

a lot of convincing. He absorbs ideas slowly; 
would decidedly rather not imagine anything till 
he is obliged; but in proportion to the slowness 
with which he can be moved, is the slowness with 
which he can be removed ! Hence the symbol of 
the bulldog. When he does see and seize a thing, 
he holds fast. 

For the particular situation which the English- 
man has now to face, he is terribly well adapted. 
Because he has so Httle imagination, so little 
power of expression, he is saving nerve all the 
time. Because he never goes to extremes, he is 
saving energy of body and spirit. That the men 
of all nations are about equally endowed with 
courage and self-sacrifice, has been proved in 
these last six months; it is to other qualities 
that one must look for final victory in a war of 
exhaustion. The Englishman does not look into 
himself; he does not brood; he sees no further 
forward than is necessary; and he must have his 
joke. These are fearful and wonderful advan- 
tages. Examine the letters and diaries of the 
various combatants, and you will see how far less 
imaginative and reflecting (though often shrewd, 
practical, and hmnorous) the English are than 
any others; you will gain, too, a deep, a deadly 
conviction that behind them is a fibre like rub- 
ber, that may be frayed and bent a Httle this 

261 



THE WAR 

way and that, but can neither be permeated nor 
broken. 

When this war began, the Englishman rubbed 
his eyes steeped in peace, he is still rubbing them 
just a Httle, but less and less every day. A pro- 
found lover of peace by habit and tradition, he 
has actually realised by now that he is 'in for it' 
up to the neck. To any one who really knows 
him — ^that is a portent! 

Let it be freely confessed that from an 
aesthetic point of view the Englishman, devoid 
of high lights and shadows, coated with drab, 
and superhiunanly steady on his feet, is not too 
attractive. But for the wearing, tearing, slow, 
and dreadful business of this war, the EngHsh- 
man — ^fighting of his own free will, imimagina- 
tive, humorous, competitive, practical, never in 
extremes, a dumb, inveterate optimist, and terri- 
bly tenacious — ^is equipped with victory. 



262 



LITERATURE AND THE WAR 

(From the Times Literary Supplement, 1915) 

For the purpose of the following speculations 
the word Literature is used to describe the 
imaginative work of artists and thinkers — that 
is, of writers who have had, and will have, some- 
thing to say of more or less lasting value; it 
leaves out the work of those who, for various 
reasons, such as patriotic sentiment or the sup- 
plying of the public with what it may be supposed 
to want, will dish up the war as a matter of neces- 
sity, whether serving it wholesale in eight courses, 
or merely using it as sauce to the customary 
meat and fish. 

How will our Hterature, thus defined, be af- 
fected by the war? Will it be affected at all? 

One must first remember that to practically 
all imaginative writers of any quahty war is an 
excrescence on human life, a monstrous calamity 
and evil. The fact that they recognise the grue- 
some inevitability of this war, in so far as the in- 
tervention of our country is concerned, does not 
in any way lessen their temperamental horror of 
war in itself, of the waste and the misery, and 
the sheer stupid brutality thereof. 

263 



THE WAR 

The nature of the imaginative artist is sensi- 
tive, impressionable; impatient of anything super- 
imposed; thinking and feehng for itself; recoil- 
ing from conglomerate views and sentiment. It 
regards the whole affair as a dreadful though 
sacred necessity, to be got through somehow, 
lest there be lost that humane freedom which is 
the life-blood of any world where the creative 
imagination and other even more precious things 
can flourish. The point is that there is no glamour 
about the business — ^none whatever, for this par- 
ticular sort of human being. Writers to whom 
war is glamorous (with the few exceptions that 
prove the rule) are not those who produce Htera- 
ture. We must therefore discount at once proph- 
ecies that the war will lift literature on to an 
epic plane, cause it to glow and blow with heroic 
deeds, and figiu-es eight feet high. They come 
from those who do not know the temperament of 
the imaginative artist, his fundamental indepen- 
dence, and habit of revolting against what is ex- 
pected of him. But the whole thing is much deeper 
than that. 

It seems to be forgotten by some who write on 
this matter that the producer of literature has 
been giving of his best in the past, and will be 
able to do no more in the future. The first thing 
that has mattered to him has been (in the words 

264 



LITERATURE AND THE WAR 

of de Maupassant, but which might have been 
those of any other first-rate writer) "to make 
something fine, in the form that shall best suit 
him according to his temperament." No amount 
of wars can vary for the artist that ideal — as it 
was for him, so it will be. It seems also to be 
thought that the war has been a startling revela- 
tion to the imaginative writer, of the heroism in 
human nature. This is giving him credit for very 
little imagination. The constant tragedies of 
peace — ^miners entombed, sinking liners, volcanic 
eruptions, outbreaks of pestilence, together with 
the long endurances of daily life, are always bring- 
ing home to any sensitive mind the inherent 
heroism of men and women. The very glut of 
heroism in this war is Hkely, as it were, to put an 
artist's nature off, to blunt the edge of perceptions 
that are always groping after fresh sensation, 
that must be always groping, in order that expres- 
sion may be of something really felt — ^for novelty 
is, of all, the greatest spur to sharp feeling. 

The top notes of human life and conduct can 
be but sparingly sung, or they grate on the 
nerves and jar the hearing of the singer no less 
than of his listener. By some mysterious law 
frontal attacks to capture heroism and imprison 
it in art are almost always failures. Few of the 
great imagined figures of literature are heroic. 

265 



THE WAR 

Another thing is forgotten. The real artist 
does not anticipate and certainly cannot regulate 
the impulses that shall move his brain and heart 
and hand. What exactly starts him off, even he 
cannot tell. He will never write heroics to the 
order of the pubHc. 

Ah! but he will now be influenced imcon- 
sciously in the choice of subjects by sympathy 
with the fine deeds of the day, a lift will come 
into his work, his eyes be raised to the stars! 
True, perhaps, for the moment; but, then, such 
times as these are in many ways unfavourable to 
the creative instinct; moreover, they will leave 
in restless, sensitive natures lassitude, recoil, a 
sense of siuf eit. Quite probably the war may pro- 
duce a real masterpiece or two formed out of its 
very stuff, by some eager mind innocent hitherto 
of creative powers, for whom actual experience 
of the sights and f eehngs of war may be a baptism 
into art. Almost certainly there will come of it 
a masterpiece or two of satire. But, generally 
speaking, this welter of sacrifice and suffering, 
the sublimity and horror of these days, their 
courage and their cruelty, are enveloping the 
writer like the breath of a sirocco, whirling his 
brain and heart around at the moment, but 
likely to leave him with an intense longing for a 
deep draught of peace and quiet, scented winds. 

266 



LITERATURE AND THE WAR 

On one whose whole natural life is woven, not of 
deeds, but of thoughts and visions, moods and 
dreams, all this intensely actual violence, product 
of utterly different natures from his own, off- 
spring of men of action and affairs, cannot have 
the permanent, deepening, clarifying influence 
that long personal experience or suffering have 
had on some of the world's greatest writers — on 
Milton in his bhndness; on Dostoyevsky, re- 
prieved at the very moment of death, then long 
imprisoned; on de Maupassant in his fear of 
coming madness; on Tolstoy, in the life-struggle 
of his dual nature; on Beethoven in his deafness, 
and Nietzsche in his deadly sickness. It is from 
the stuff of his own life that the creative writer 
moulds out for the world something fine, in the 
form that best suits him, following his own tem- 
perament. His momentary and, perhaps, intense 
identification with the struggle of this war has in 
it something spasmodic, feverish, and almost 
false; a kind of deep and tragic inconsistency. It 
is too foreign to the real self within him. At one 
time it was said of certain new troops: "They're 
first-rate, except for one thing — they will not 
bayonet the Germans.'' It is like that in the 
artist-writer's soul — with the work of his hands, 
the words of his lips, his thoughts, and the feel- 
ings of his heart, he identifies himself with this 

267 



THE WAR 

war drama, yet in the very depths of him he re- 
coils. What would you have? The artist-man 
has but one nature. 

For all these reasons the war is likely to have 
little deep or lasting influence on Hterature. 
But one immediate effect it may surely have. 
Let who will snatch a moment in these days to 
be with Nature — ^let him go into a wood, or walk 
down the Flower walk in Kensington Gardens, 
of a fine afternoon. On the still birch-trees a 
pigeon will be sitting motionless among the gray 
twig tracery; the cedar branches are dark and 
flat on the air; the sun warms the cheek and 
brightens the cream and pink chestnut and 
maple buds just opening; the waxy hyacinths 
deepen in hue, and the little green shoots every- 
where swell as he gazes. A sensation of deHght 
begins to lift his heart, he takes a deep breath; 
and suddenly, from a bench he hears: "One of 
'em's alive an' two's dead," Or: "The Germans 
are movin' 'em!" Gone is the beginning of de- 
light. The heavy hand comes down again. No 
good! There is no spring! The sky is not 
bright. The heart cannot rejoice. As with any 
man, so, and even more, with the artist-writer. 
When the war is over and the heavy hand lifted, 
his heart and brain will rush to that of which he 
has been deprived too long — ^will rush to the beauty 

268 



LITERATURE AND THE WAR 

which, for sheer pity and horror, he cannot now 
enjoy, will rush as a starved and thirsting crea- 
ture. There may well be an instant outburst of 
joyful and sensuous imaginings; a painting of 
beauty, not faked but really felt, by brushes at 
once more searching and yet softer. 

And very likely, too, there will be a spurt of 
zest and frankness, as from men who have been 
too long constrained to a single emotion under 
the spell of a powerful drug. 

One more thought may be jotted down. Un- 
less the national imity now prevailing lasts on 
into the years of peace that follow, the country 
will certainly pass through great internal stress. 
That stress will most likely have a more intimate 
and powerful influence upon literature than the 
war itself. If there is to come any startling 
change, it should be five or ten years after the 
war rather than at once. 



269 



ART AND THE WAR 

(From the Atlantic Monthly and Fortnightly Review, 1915) 

Monsieur Rodin — ^probably the greatest living 
artist — ^has lately defined art as the pursuit of 
beauty, and beauty as ' the expression of what there 
is best in man/ 'Man/ he says, 'needs to express 
in a perfect form of art all his intuitive longings 
toward the Unknowable/ His words may serve 
as warning to those who imagine that the war will 
loosen one root of the tree of art — a tree which 
has been growing slowly since first soul came into 
men's eyes. 

This world (as all will admit) is one of the in- 
numerable expressions of an Unknowable Creative 
Purpose, which colloquially we call God; that 
which not every one will admit is that this Crea- 
tive Purpose works in its fashioning not only of 
matter but of what we call spirit, through fric- 
tion, through the rubbing together of the noses, 
the thoughts, and the hearts of men. While the 
material condition of our planet — ^the heat or 
friction within it — ^remains favourable to human 
life, there will, there must needs be, a continual 
crescendo in the stature of humanity, through 
the ever-increasing friction of humaa spirits one 

270 



ART AND THE WAR 

with the other; friction suppHed by life itself 
and, next after life, by those transcripts of life, 
those expressions of human longing which we 
know as art. Art for art's sake — if it meant what 
it said, which is doubtful — was always a vain and 
silly cry. As well contend that an artist is not a 
man. Art was ever the servant as well as the 
mistress of men, and ever will be. Civihsation, 
which, after all, is but the gradual conversion of 
animal man into human man, has come about 
through art even more than through religion, 
law, and science. For the achieved * expression 
of man's intuitive longing toward the Unknow- 
able, in more or less perfect . . . forms of art' 
has ever — after life itself — ^been the chief influ- 
ence in broadening men's hearts. 

The aim of himaan life no doubt is happiness. 
But, after all, what is happiness? Efficiency, 
wealth, material comfort? Many by their Hves 
do so affirm; few are cynical enough to say so; 
and on their death-beds none will feel that they 
are. Not even freedom in itself brings happiness. 
Happiness lies in breadth of heart. And breadth 
of heart is that inward freedom, which has the 
power to understand, feel with, and, if need be, 
help others. In breadth of heart are founded 
justice, love, sacrifice; without it there would 
seem no special meaning to any of our efforts, 

271 



THE WAR 

and the tale of all human life would still be no 
more than that of very gifted animals, many of 
whom indeed are highly efficient, and have unity 
partly instinctive, partly founded on experiences 
of the utiHty thereof; but none of whom have that 
conscious altruism which is without perception 
of benefit to self, and works from sheer recognition [ 
of its own beauty. In sum, human civilisation is 
the growth of conscious altruism; and the direc- 
tive moral purpose in the world nothing but our 
dim perception, ever growing through spiritual 
friction, that we are all bound more and more 
toward the understanding of ourselves and each 
other, and all that this carries with it. To imagine, 
then, that a conflagration like this war, however 
vast and hellish, will do aught but momentarily 
retard the crescendo of that imderstanding, is to 
miss perception of the whole slow process by 
which man has become less atid less an animal 
throughout the ages; and to fear that the war 
will scorch and wither art, that chief agent of 
understanding, is either to identify one's self with 
the petty and eclectic views which merely pro- 
duce aesthetic excrescences, or to be frankly igno- 
rant of what art means. 

Recognition of the relativity of art is con- 
stantly neglected by those who talk and write 
about it. For one school the audience does not 

272 



ART AND THE WAR 

exist; for another nothing but the audience. 
Obviously neither view is right. Art may be 
very naive and still be art — still be the expression 
of a childish vision appealing to childish visions, 
making childish hearts beat. Thus: 

"Mary had a little lamb. 
Its wool was white as snow. 
And everywhere that Mary went 
The lamb was sure to go." 

is art to the child of five, whose heart and fancy 
it affects. And: 

"Tiger, tiger, burning bright 
Through the forests of the night — ^ 
What immortal hand and eye 
Framed thy fearful symmetry?" 

is art to the writer and the reader of these words. 
On the other hand; Tolstoy, in limiting art to 
such of it as might be understanded of simple folk, 
served his purpose of attacking the extravagant 
dandyisms of sestheticism, but fell lugubriously 
short of the wide truth. The essence of art is 
the power of communication between heart and 
heart — ^Yes ! But since no one shall say to human 
nature, 'Be of this or that pattern,' or to the 
waves of human understanding, 'Thus far and 
no further,' so no man shall say these things to 
art. 

273 



THE WAR 

Anybody can draw a tree, but few can draw a 
tree that others can see is like a tree, and not one 
in a million can convey the essential spirit of tree. 
The power of getting over the footlights to some 
audience or other is clearly necessary before a 
man can be called an artist by any but himself. 
But so soon as he has established genuine con- 
nection between his creation and the gratified 
perception of others, he is making art, though it 
may be, and usually is, very childish art. The 
point to grasp is this, and again this: Art is 
rooted in life for its inspiration, and dependent 
for its existence as art on affecting other hiunan 
beings, sooner or later. The statue, the picture, 
or the book which, having been given a proper 
chance, has failed to move any but its creators 
is certainly not art. It does not follow that the 
artist should consider his pubHc, or try to please 
others than his own best self; but if, in pleasing 
his best self, he does not succeed in pleasing 
others, in the past, the present, or the future, he 
will certainly not have produced art. Not, of 
course, that the size of his public is proof of an 
artistes merit. The public for all time is generally 
but a small public at any given moment. Tol- 
stoy seems to have forgotten that, and to have 
neglected the significance attaching to the quality 
of a public. For, if the essence of art be its power 

274 






ART AND THE WAR 

of bridging between heart and heart (as he ad- 
mitted) its value may well be greater if at first 
it only reaches and fertilises the hearts of other 
artists rather than those of the public, for 
through these other artists it sweeps out again 
in further circles and ripples of expression. Art 
is the universal traveller, essentially international 
in influence. Revealing the spirit of things lying 
behind parochial surfaces and circumstances, 
delving down into the common stuff of nature and 
human natiu-e, and, recreating therefrom, it passes 
ten thousand miles of space, ten thousand years 
of time, and yet appeals to the men it finds on 
those far shores. It is the one possession of a 
country which that country's enemies usually 
still respect and take delight in. War — destruc- 
tive, outcome of the side of man's nature which is 
hostile to aU breadth of heart — can for the mo- 
ment paralyse the outward activities of art, but 
can it ever chain its spirit, or arrest the inner 
ferment of the creative instinct? For thousands 
of generations war has been the normal state of 
man's existence, yet alongside war has flourished 
art, reflecting man's myriad aspirations and long- 
ings, and by innumerable expressions of individual 
vision and sentiment, ever unifying human life, 
through the common factor of impersonal emo- 
tion passing from heart to heart by ways more 

275 



THE WAR 

invisible than the winds travel, carrying the seeds 
and pollen of herb life. If one could only see those 
countless tenuous bridges spun by art, a dewy 
web over the whole lawn of hfe! If for a mo- 
ment we could see them, discouragement would 
cease its uneasy buzzing. What can this war do 
that a million wars have not? It is bigger and 
more bloody — ^the reaction from it will but be 
the greater. If every work of art existing in. the 
Western world were obliterated and every artist 
kiUed, would hiunan natiu-e return to the animal- 
ism from which art has in a measure raised it? 
Not so. Art makes good in the human soul all 
the positions that it conquers. 

When the war is over, the world will find that 
the thing which has changed least is art. There 
will be less money to spend on it; some artists 
will have been killed; certain withered leaves, 
warts, and dead branches will have sloughed off 
from the tree; and that is all. The wind of war 
reeking with death will neither have warped nor 
poisoned it. The utihty of art, which in these 
days of blood and agony is mocked at, will be 
rising again into the view even of the mockers, 
almost before the thunder of the last shell has 
died away. 'Beauty is useful,' says Monsieur 
Rodin. Ay ! it is useful ! 

Who knows whether even in the full whirlwind 
276 



ART AND THE WAR 

of this most gigantic struggle, art work may not 
be produced which, in sum of its ultimate effect 
on mankind, will outlive and outweigh the total 
net result of that struggle, just as the work of 
Euripides, Shakespeare, Leonardo, Beethoven, 
and Tolstoy outweighed the net result of the 
Peloponnesian, sixteenth-century, Napoleonic, and 
Crimean wars. War is so unutterably tragic, 
because — ^without it — Nature, given time, would 
have attained the same ends in other ways. A 
war is the spasmodic uprising of old savage in- 
stincts against the slow and gradual humanising 
of the animal called man. It emanates from rest- 
less and so-called virile natiu-es fundamentally 
intolerant of men^s progress toward the imder- 
standing of each other — ^natiu-es that often pro- 
fess a blasphemous belief in art, a blasphemous al- 
liance with God. It still apparently suffices for 
a knot of such natures to get together, and play 
on mass fears and loyalties, to set a continent 
on fire. And at the end? Those of us who are 
able to look back from thirty years hence on this 
tornado of death — ^will conclude with a dreadful 
laugh that if it had never come, the state of the 
world would be very much the same. 

It is not the intention of these words to deny 
the desperate importance of this conflict now that 
it has been joined — ^Humanism and Democracy 

277 



THE WAR 

have been forced into a sudden and spasmodic 
death-grapple with their arch-enemies; and the 
end of that struggle must be brought into con- 
formity with the slow, sure, general progress of 
mankind. But if, by better fortune, this fear- 
ful conflict had not been forced upon civilisation 
the same victory would have made good in course 
of time, by other processes. That is the irony. 
For, of a surety, wars or no wars — ^the future is 
to humanism. 

But art has no cause to droop its head, nor 
artists to be discouraged. They are the servants 
of the future every bit as much as, and more 
than, they have been the servants of the past; 
they are even the faithful servants of the pres- 
ent, for they must keep their powers in training 
and their vision keen against the time when they 
are once more accounted of. A true pictiu-e is a 
joy that will move hearts some day, though it 
may not sell now, not even for some years after 
the war; beauty is none the less 'the expression of 
what there is best in man,' because the earth is 
being soaked with blood. 

Monsieur Sologub, the Russian poet, speaking 
recently on the future of art, seems to have indi- 
cated his view that after the war art will move 
away from the paths of naturalism; and he de- 
fines the naturahsts as 'people who describe life 

278 



ART AND THE WAR 

from the standpoint of material satisfaction.' 
With that definition I don't agree at all; but it 
is never good to argue about words. Confusion 
in regard to the meaning of terms describing art 
activity is so profoimd that it is well to sweep 
them out of our minds, and, in considering what 
forms art ought to take, go deep down to the 
criterion of communication between heart and 
heart. The only essential is — that vision, fancy, 
feeling should be given the concrete clothing that 
shall best make them perceptible by the hearts 
of others; the simpler, the more direct and clear 
and elemental the form the better; and that is all 
you can say about it. To seek remote, intricate, 
and 'precious' clothings for the imagination is but 
to handicap vision and imperil communication 
and appeal; the artists who seek them are not 
usually of much account. The greatness of Blake 
is the greatness of his simpler work. Though 
in this connection, it is as much affectation to 
pretend that men are more childish than they are, 
as to pretend that they all have the subtlety of a 
Robert Browning. K the range of an artist's 
vision, the essential truth of his fancy, and the 
heat of his feehng be great, then, obviously, the 
simpler, the more accessible the form he takes, 
the wider will be his reach, the deeper the emo- 
tion he stirs, the greater the value of his art. 

279 



THE WAR 

'What is wanted/ says Monsieur Sologub, 'is 
true art/ Quite so I What is wanted in a work 
of art is an unforced natural and adequate cor- 
respondence between fancy and form, matter and 
spirit, so that one shall not be distracted by its 
naturalism, mysticism, cubism, whatnotism, but 
shall simply be moved in a deep impersonal way 
by perception of another^s vision. Two instances 
come into the mind: A picture of 'Spring' by 
Jean Frangois Millet, in the Louvre. Therein, 
by simple selection, without any departure what- 
ever from the normal representation of life, the 
very essence of spring, the brooding and the 
white flash of it, the suspense and stir, the sense 
of gathered torrents, all the special emotion, 
which, every spring of the year, is sooner or later 
felt by every heart, has been stored by the paint- 
er^s vision and feehng, and projected from his 
eyes and heart to other eyes and hearts. 

And: Those chapters in a novel of Monsieur 
Sologub's compatriot, Turgenev, 'Fathers and 
Children,' which describe with the simplest nat- 
uralism the death of Bazarov. There, too, is 
the heart-beat of emotion as imiversal as it well 
can be, rendered so vividly that one is not con- 
scious at all of how it is rendered. 

These are two cases of that complete welding 
of form and spirit which is all one need or should 

280 



ART AND THE WAR 

demand of art; the rest is a mere question of the 
artistes emotional quality and stature. Art, in 
fact, will take all paths after the war just as 
before; and now and then the artist will fashion 
that true blend of form and fancy which is the 
achievement of beauty. 

For Monsieur Rodin, beauty is the adoration 
of all that man perceives with his spiritual senses. 
Yes. And the task of artists is to kneel before 
life till they rive the heart from it and with that 
heart twine their own; out of such marriages 
come precious offspring, winged messengers. 

There is a picture of Francesca^s in the Louvre, 
too much restored — some say it is not a Francesca, 
but if not, then neither are the Francescas in the 
English National Gallery, and those, so far as I 
know, are not disputed — a picture of the Virgin, 
with hands pressed together, before her naked 
Babe, in a landscape of hills and waters. Her 
kneeling figure has in it I cannot tell what of de- 
votion and beauty, which makes the heart turn 
over within one. With his spiritual senses the 
painter has perceived, and in adoration set 
down what he has seen, mingling with it the long- 
ings of his own heart. And they who look on that 
picture know for evermore what devotion and 
beauty are. And if they be artists, they go away 
fortified again to the taking up of a long quest. 

281 



THE WAR 

This is the utiHty of art. It plays between 
men like light, showing the heights and depths of 
nature, beckoning on, or warning of destruction, 
and ever through emotion revealing heart to 
heart. It is the priestess of Humanism, confirm- 
ing to us our future, reassiu*ing our faltering faith 
in our own approach to the Unknowable; till the 
tides of the Creative Purpose turn, and our 
world gets cold; and Man, having lived his day 
to the uttermost, finds gradual sleep. 



282 



TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO 

(From the Book of Italy, 1916) 

Most of US who have Hved a good, long time 
have found some part of the world to look on as 
the happy hunting-ground of our spirits, the 
place most blessed by memory. And within that 
sacred circle there will be some spot, above all 
others, enchanted. 

Tre Cime di Lavaredo! Drei Zinnen! You 
three rock mountains above Misurina of the 
ItaHan Tyrol — how many times have we not 
climbed up, to He on your high stony slopes, 
steeping our eyes in wild form and colour, where- 
from even a dull spirit must take wings and soar 
a little ! Width of thought is surely bom, in some 
sort, of majestic sights — cloud forms and a burn- 
ing sky, rock pinnacles, and wandering, deep- 
down valleys, the gray-violet shadows on the 
hills, the frozen serenity of far snows. All the 
outspread miracle there hes fan-shaped to the 
south, southeast, southwest, having that warmth 
which so makes the heart rejoice the moment one 
passes over and looks southward from any moun- 
tain. What traveller does not feel a strange love- 
liness steal up into his soul from southern slopes? 

283 



THE WAR 

Domodossola below the Simplon; Val d'Aosta 
beyond the Matterhom; Bormio beneath the 
Stelvio; and many another holy place. It is not 
merely charm and mellowness — ^the south can be 
savage as the north — ^it is some added poignancy 
of form and colour, and a look of being blessed. 

Tre Cime di Lavaredo! Music comes drifting 
up your slopes, from pasture far down enough to 
give magic to cow-bells. 

But now, where but three years ago we watched 
a little white cow licking its herd^s sprained 
haad, men are fighting to the death. Batteries 
must be adorning that steep f orcella running from 
the refuge hut. A new kind of thxmder rever- 
berates, in whose roar the stones that were for 
ever falling will have lost their voices. And the 
beasts, the gray, the dun, the white, mild-eyed — 
their pasture below must be a desert ! Even the 
goats surely have gone. Or do they and their 
young masters attend placidly on these new mys- 
teries, just pricking their ears now and again at 
some too raucous clap and clatter of guns ? 

Let those who are killed up there be buried 
in their tracks ! Out of their bodies on the lower 
slopes a few more flowers will spring — ^gentian, 
mountain-dandelion, alpen-rose; and higher, 
nearer those peaks, they will be grateful food for 
root of edelweiss. And may their spirits — ^if men 

284 



TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO 

have such after death — stay up on those wild 
heights! Nowhere else could they have such 
free flitting space ! Friend-spirit, foe-spirit, they 
will fight no more, but on the winter nights in 
comradeship haunt the frozen hills, where no shred 
of man or beast or bird or plant is left, till spring 
comes again. 

To fight up here, where Nature has designed 
one vast demonstration of her own fierce un- 
tameness of all the stubborn face she opposes to 
the crafts of man! What irony ! Up in this wild, 
stony citadel, among these rock minarets and red- 
and -gold-stained bastions, above remote ravines — 
up here, where in winter all is ice, and even in 
summer no green thing grows; on these invincible 
outposts of an earth not yet subdued by incalcu- 
lable human toil throughout a million years; 
among these sublime, imconquered monuments, 
reminding us of labour and peril infinite in our 
long death-grip with Nature — up here man has 
fellow man by the throat. Yea! Irony com- 
plete ! Nor the less perfect in th^t each soldier 
on these heights — ^who in duty clubs his fellow 
Christian's brains out, or sends forth the shell 
that shall mingle his body with the rock rubble 
and the edelweiss, and sets up a Httle cross, per- 
haps, to the departed soul — ^is a true hero, holding 
his life in his hand, throwing it down grandly for 

285 



THE WAR 

his country's honour. Verily we are strange 
animals — we men — ^little walking magaziaes of 
too great vitality! Out of our sheer rampancy 
comes war; as though superfluity of vital fluid 
were for ever accumulating, to free ourselves of 
which we have found as yet no better way than 
this. Shall we never learn to spend the surplus 
of our vital force in efforts of salvation, rather 
than destruction? If the moimtains cannot 
teach US; and the wide night skies above them, 
sparkling with other worlds, then nothing will. 
For on moimtains and beneath such skies man 
feels at his greatest, flies far in fancy, dreams 
of nobility; yet does he perceive what a pimy 
midget of a creature walks on his two feet, glad 
of any little help he can get or give, glad of good- 
will from any living thing. In loneliness up here 
he would soon be frozen and starved, or slip to 
death. His tiny strength, his feeble cunning, 
would avail him but short span. Unroped to 
other men, he is but a sigh in the night, a cross 
of bleaching lime in to-morrow^s sunhght. . . . 

Tre Cime di Lavaredo ! Golden sounds of a 
golden speech! When, if ever, we see your be- 
loved rocks again, that may be your only name; 
no longer, perhaps, will the words Drei Zinnen 
compete for you. . . . But will you know the dif- 
ference? As of old, gigantic — silent, or, clamor- 

286 



TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO 

ously, in the loosening rains and heat, casting 
down your stones — you will lift up your black 
defiance in the clear mountain nights, your 
grandeur to the sun by day. 

Once we saw you with the yoimg moon flying 
toward, like a white swallow, like an arrow aimed 
at your hearts, as it might be in duel between 
bright swiftness and dark strength. The moon 
was vanquished — ^for she flew into you that stood 
unmoved. 

Tre Cime di Lavaredo! You will outlast the 
race of men upon this earth. When we, quarrel- 
some midget heroes that we be, are all frozen 
from this planet, you will be there, whitened for 
ever from head to foot. You will have no name, 
then — ^neither of north nor south ! 



287 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

(From Scribner's Magazine, 1915) 



I went out into the wind — ^the first southwest 
wind after many days of easterly drought. All 
the morning it had rained, but now the gray sky 
was torn; the sun shone, and long white clouds 
were driven over pools of blue or piled up into 
heavenly mountains. The land of moor and val- 
ley, the hills and fields and woods gleamed in the 
sunlight, or were shadowed dark by the drifting 
clouds. Moss on the top of the old gray walls 
was wet, but warm to the touch; the birds — 
daws, pigeons, hawks — ^flimg themselves at the 
wind. And the scent! Every frond of the bracken, 
the sprigs of the gorse and the heather, all the 
soughing boughs of young pine-tree and oak, and 
the grass, gray-powdered with rain, were exhaling 
their fragrance, so that each breath drawn was a 
draught of wild perfume. 

And in one^s heart rose an ecstasy of love for 
this wind-sweetened earth, for the sun and the 
clouds, the rain and the wind, the trees and the 
flowering plants, for the streams and the rocks — 
for this earth which breeds us all, and into which 

288 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

we reabsorb, a passion as untutored, wild, and 
natural as the love of life in the merest dumb 
thing that knows nothing of ideals, of country, 
realms, and poHcies, nothing of war. 

Germany calls the war "this English war'^; 
England as fervently beHeves it a Prussian war, 
having deep root in Prussian will and history. 
One thing is certain: At the last moment the 
world, desperately balancing, was thrust over the 
edge of the abyss, by a sudden swoop of the Prus- 
sian war party. 

Pourtales (German ambassador to Russia) called 
Sazonoff's attention in the most serious manner to the 
fact that nowadays measures of mobilisation would be a 
highly dangerous form of diplomatic pressure; for in that 
event the purely military consideration of the question 
by the general staffs would find expression and that, if 
that button were once touched in Germany, the situation 
would get out of control. (Count Szapary, Austrian 
ambassador to Russia. Austrian Book No. 28.) * 

In a Europe teeming with mutual fears, a few 
men, perhaps not a score in all, have had the 

* Note. — Since this was written Maximilian Harden in his 
paper, Zukunft, has used these words: "Germany is calmnniated 
when it is said that she wanted war, not to defend herself, but 
in order to conquer. But it is equally false to suppose that Eng- 
land, France, or Russia, who were either not armed at all or only 
half ready . . . deUberately planned an attack. The outbreak 
of the war could not be arrested, because at the decisive moment 
the Will of the Strategists was stronger than the Will of the States- 
men." 

289 



THE WAR 

power to strip from millions their meed of life 
on this wind-sweetened earth! For myths con- 
ceived in a few ambitious brains, and the 'strike- 
first' theory of a knot of strategists, the whole 
world must pay with grief and agony! What 
can we do, when this war is over, to insure that 
we shall not again be stampeded by professional 
soldiers, and those — ^in whatever coimtry — ^who 
dream paper dreams of territory, trade, and glory, 
caring nothing for the lives of the simple, know- 
ing nothing of the beauty of the earth which is 
their heritage? 



2§ 

"No com planted, more men wanted !'' — ^words 
of the old Dalmatian song ! 

It is no use crymg over spilt milk, and no 
good throwing down the instruments in the mid- 
dle of an operation. But there is every use in 
keeping before one's self perpetually the thought 
that this war is an operation to excise the tram- 
pling instinct; for there are many among us will- 
ing to speak of an operation while it serves their 
purpose, who unconsciously believe in that which 
they profess to be cutting out. Human nature 
is much the same all the world over. The Prus- 
sian junker is but a specially favoured variety of 

290 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

a well-marked type that grows in every land. 
And the business of other men is to keep circmn- 
stances from being favourable to its development 
and ascendancy. 

When we talk of safeguarding democracy, 
liberty, and the rights of small nations, we really 
only mean the muzzling of the junkerism in 
human nature; the restraint of this trampling 
instinct. Who would give a rush for the immu- 
nity of any nation from the resurgence within it- 
self of that instinct, unless it watches with lynx 
eyes ? I cannot but think that, when peace comes 
and Prussian junkerism is held harmless for a 
span, junkerism in general will have a better 
chance of pushing up its hydra heads than it 
had before this war. Times will be very hard — 
the "have nots" and "they who have" will be 
very nakedly set over against each other. Cir- 
cumstances will be favoiu-able to civil strife; and 
civil strife, whichever side wins, fosters despotic 
leaderships, and the trampling instinct. Those 
not merely hoping and meaning to try for a better 
world after the war, but expecting one almost 
as a matter of course, forget that the devotion 
and unity which men display under the shadow 
of a great fear and the stimulus of that most 
powerful and universal emotion, patriotism, will 
sHp away from them when the fear and the 

291 



THE WAR 

emotion are removed. If before the war men 
were incapable of rising to great and united ef- 
fort for their own betterment out of sheer desire 
for perfection, are they even as Hkely to be able 
when, after the war, economic stress puts a greater 
strain on each individual's good-will ? 

The words of a certain prophet: "Literature, 
Art, Industry, Commerce, Politics, Statesman- 
ship will, when this fighting day is over, come 
into a new and better era," are soothing syrup. 
Let us by all means hope for and intend the best, 
but let us set ourselves to face the worst. 



3§ 

Because pens lie unused, or are but feebly 
wielded over the war, they would have us be- 
lieve that modern literature has been found want- 
ing. "Look," they say, "how nobly the Greek 
and the Elizabethan pens rhymed the epic strug- 
gles of their ages. What a degenerate, nerveless 
creature is this modern pen! See how it fails 
when put to the touchstone of great events and 
the thrilling realities of war!" I think this is 
nonsense. The greatest pens of the past were 
strangers to the glamour of war. Euripides made 
it the subject of a dirge; Shakespeare of casual 

292 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

treatment; Cervantes of his irony. They were 
in advance of the feeling of their day about war; 
but now their feeling has become that of mankind 
at large; and the modern pen, good, bad, or 
indifferent, follows — longo intervallo — ^their pre- 
vision of war's downfalling glory. In the words 
of a certain officer, war is now "damn dull, 
damn dirty, and damn dangerous.'^ The people 
of Britain, and no doubt of the other countries 
— however bravely they may fight — are fighting 
not because they love it, not because it is natural 
to them, but because — alas! — they must. This 
makes them the more heroic since the romance 
of war for them is past, belonging to cruder 
stages of the world's journey. 

In our consciousness to-day there is a violent 
divorce between our admiration for the fine 
deeds, the sacrifices, and heroisms of this war, 
and our feeling about war itself. A shadowy sense 
of awful waste hangs over it all in the mind of 
the simplest soldier as in that of the subtlest 
penman. It may be real that we fight for our 
conceptions of hberty and justice; but we feel 
all the time that we ought not to have had to 
fight, that these things should be respected of 
the nations; that we have grown out of such 
savagery; that the whole business is a kind of 
monstrous madness suddenly let loose on the 

293 



THE WAR 

world. Such feelings were never in the souls of 
ordinary men, whether soldiers or civihans, in 
the days of Elizabeth or Themistocles. They 
fought, then, as a matter of course. In those so- 
called heroic ages "the thrilling realities of war'' 
were truly the realities of life and feeling. To- 
day they are but as a long nightmare. We have 
discovered that man is a creature slowly, by means 
of thought and life and art, evolving from the 
animal he was into the human being he will be 
some day, and in that desperately slow progres- 
sion sloughing off the craving for physical combat 
and the destruction of his fellow man. This pro- 
cess does not apparently mean the loss of stoi- 
cism and courage, but rather the increase thereof, 
as milHons in this war, after the most peaceful 
century in the world's history, have proved. 
But we are a few paces further on toward the 
fully evolved hiunan being than were the com- 
patriots of Themistocles or EHzabeth. 

The true reahties of to-day He in peace. The 
great epic of our time is the expression of man's 
slow emergence from the blood-loving animal he 
was. To that great epic the modern pen has 
long been consecrate, and is not likely to betray 
its trust. 



294 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

4§ 

One day we read in our journals how an enemy 
Socialist or Pacifist has raised his voice against 
the mob passions and war spite of his country, 
and we think: "What an enlightened man!'' 
and the next day, in the same journals, we read 
that So-and-So has done the same thing in our 
own coxmtry, and we think: "My God! He 
ought to be hung!'' To-day we hsten with en- 
thusiasm to orations of om* statesmen about the 
last drop of our blood, and the last pennies in 
our purses, and we think: "That is patriotism !" 
To-morrow we read utterance by enemy notables 
about arming the cats and dogs, and exclaim: 
"What truculent insanity!" We learn on Mon- 
day that some disguised fellow countryman has 
risked his life to secure information from the 
heart of the enemy's country, and we think: 
"That was real courage!" And on Tuesday 
our bile rises at discovering that an enemy has 
been arrested in oiu- midst for espionage, and we 
think: "The dirty spy!" Our blood boils on 
Wednesday at hearing of the scurvy treatment 
of one of ourselves resident in the enemy's coun- 
try. And on Thursday we read of the wrecking 
by our mob of ahens' shops, and think: "Well, 
what could they expect, belonging to that na- 

295 



THE WAR 

tion !" When one of our regiments has defended 
itself with exceptional bravery, and inflicted 
great loss on the enemy, we justly call it — ^hero- 
ism. When some enemy regiment has done the 
same, we use the word — ferocity. The comic 
papers of the enemy guy us, and we think: "How 
childish!" Ours guy the enemy, and we cry: 
'^Ah! thaVs good!" Our enemies use a hymn 
of hate, and we despise them for it. We do our 
hate in silence, and feel ourselves the better for 
the practice. 

Shall we not rather fight our fight, and win it, 
without these little ironies? 



5§ 

The first thing he does when he comes down 
each morning is to read his paper, and the mo- 
ment he has finished breakfast he sticks the neces- 
sary flags into his big map. He began to do that 
very soon after the war broke out, and has never 
missed a day. It would seem to him almost as if 
peace had been declared, and the universe were 
suddenly unbottomed, if any morning he omitted 
to alter sHghtly three flags at least. What will 
he do when the end at last is reached^ and he 
can no longer tear the paper open with a kind 

296 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

of trembling avidity; no longer debate within 
himself the questions of strategy and the absorb- 
ing chances of the field; when he has, in fact, to 
sweep his flags into a drawer and forget they 
ever were ? It would haunt him, if he thought of 
it. But sufficient unto his day is the good 
thereof. Yes! It has almost come to that 
with him; though he will still talk to you of "this 
dreadful war,'^ and never allude to the days as 
" great '^ or to the times as "stirring,'^ as some 
folk do. No, he sincerely believes that he is dis- 
tressed beyond measm-e by the continuance of 
"the abominable business"; and would not con- 
fess for worlds that he would miss it, that it has 
become for him a daily " cocktail '^ to his ap- 
petite for life. It is not he, after all, who is being 
skinned; to the skinning of other eels the in- 
dividual eel is soon accustomed. By proxy to be 
'^making history," to be witnessing the "great- 
est drama" known to man since the beginning 
of the world — ^after all it is something ! He will 
never have such a chance again. He still re- 
membei-s with a shudder how he felt the first weeks 
after war was declared; and the mere fact that 
he shudders shows that his present feelings are 
by no means what they were. After all, one can- 
not remain for ever prepossessed with suffering 
that is not one^s own, or with fears of invasion 

297 



THE WAR 

indefinitely postponed. True, he has lost a 
nephew, a second cousin, the sons of several 
friends. He has been duly sorry, duly sym- 
pathetic, but then, he was not dangerously fond 
of any of them. His own son is playing his part, 
and he is proud of it. If the boy should be killed 
he will feel poignant grief, but even then there 
is revenge to be considered. His pocket is suffer- 
ing, but it is for the country — and that almost 
makes it a pleasure. And he goes on sticking in 
his flags in spots where the earth is a mush of 
mangled flesh, and the air shrill with the whir of 
shells, the moans of dying men, and the screams 
of horses. 

Is this pure fantasy; or does it hold a grain of 
truth? 



6§ 

The war brings up with ever greater insistence 
the two antagonistic feelings of which one was 
always conscious: That men are radically alike. 
And that there are two kinds of men, subtly but 
hopelessly divided from each other. 

Men are radically alike in the way they meet 
danger and death, in their sentiment and in their 
laughter, in their endurance, their passions, 
their self-sacrifice, their selfishness, their super- 

298 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

stitions, and their gratitude. They are radically 
divided by possession or not, of that extra sensi- 
tiveness to proportion, form, colour, sound, which 
we call the sense of beauty. Would there still 
be war in a world the most of whose dwellers had 
the sense of beauty? I think not. And they 
who have it, so few by comparison, are tragic- 
ally compelled to Kve and bear their part in 
this hell, created by a world of which they are 
not. 

These two kinds of men shade subtly the one 
into the other; but the division is real, for all 
that — ^the bristles on the backs of each true 
specimen on either side of the line rise at sight of 
the other sort. 

And the war, with its toil and hardships, its 
common humanity, deaths and dangers, and 
sacrifices shared, will not bring them one jot 
nearer one to the other. Is there evidence for 
thinking that a sense of beauty is more common 
than it was? I am not sure. But there is cer- 
tamly no chance that the sense of beauty can in- 
crease within measurable time, so as to give its 
possessors a majority. No chance that wars will 
cease from that reason. The little world of beauty 
lovers wiU for many ages yet, perhaps always, be 
pitifully in tow, half-drowned by the following 
surge of the big, insensitive world when it loses 

299 



THE WAR 

for a time what little feeling for harmony it has, 
and goes full speed ahead. 



7§ 

Sonie argue earnestly that what really restrains 
and regulates the conduct of individuals is not 
force, but the general sense of decency, the public 
opinion of the commimity; and that the same mle 
applies to nations. In other words, that there is 
no reason why inter-State morality should be dif- 
ferent from that prevailing among the individ- 
uals within a state. 

This argument neglects to perceive, first: 
That the public opinion of a community is, in 
reality, latent force; that in a real community 
'right is might' up to a certain point, that is. 
And secondly: That there is as yet no commu- 
nity within which the nations dwell. 

An individual cannot pursue rank egotism to 
the complete overriding of his neighbours with- 
out knowing that those neighbours can and will 
give concrete expression to their resentment, and 
suppress him. This latent force is at the back 
of all state law and of all public opinion, which 
is but state law unwritten. The essence of its 
efficacy is the fact that individuals do live in 
community, each one perceiving with the non- 
300 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

rampant part of him that the rest are right in 
squashing his rampancy, since hfe in commimity 
would soon be impossible if they did not. He 
consents, subconsciously, to being squashed when 
he is rampant, because he recognises himself to 
be part of a whole. 

Until nations have come to be parts of com- 
munities, or group states, there will be no really 
effective analogy between individual morality 
and state morality. There is or was, of course, a 
growing international decency, a reaching out 
toward co-operation, a recognition that certain 
things are "not done"; but it is liable to be 
violated, as we have seen, at any moment by any 
state which is, or thinks itself, strong enough to 
override laws which have no adequate latent 
force behind them. To create this latent control- 
ling force we have paramount need of a system 
of group states, leading on by slow degrees 
through the linking of one group with another, 
to an United States of the World. The neces- 
sary line of progression is sufficiently disclosed 
by the violation of Belgian neutrality and other 
matters in this war. Public opinion not backed 
by latent force has been proved useless. There 
is no such thing, I fear, as public opinion worth 
the name except within a definite community. 
The task of statesmen when peace comes is the 

301 



THE WAR 

formation of an United States of Europe — ^linked 
if possible with the countries of America — the 
creation of a real pubHc opinion backed by a real, 
if latent; force. 



8§ 

Nietzsche was an individualist, a hater of the 
state and of the Prussians, a sick man, a great 
artist in words to be read with delight and — 
your tongue in your cheek. By quaint irony his 
central idea, "the ego-rampant,'' was tempera- 
mentally suited to those Prussians whom he hated. 
The Neo-German conception of the state (if one 
may fairly judge it out of the mouths of certain 
Germans) as a law unto itself, demanding all 
from the individuals who compose it, and taking 
all it can get from the world at large, may be in- 
verted Nietzscheism, but it is the creature of 
Prussian histoiy, and of very different men. It 
is based on what we others, and I imagine many 
Germans, think is a transient and false notion of 
what states should be. We say they should not 
roam the earth considering only their own 
strength. True that, in the absence as yet of 
the system of group states, states still can seize 
here or seize there, if they be strong enough, but 
we emphatically deny that they should do so on 

302 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

principle, as the new German philosophy seems 
to teach, and set the robber's ideal, the robber's 
fashion of morality, for the individuals who com- 
pose those states. The philosophy not only of 
the rest of Europe, but of Germany, before all, 
in the days of Kant and Hegel, presumed that 
the hard-won morahty of individuals among 
themselves would ultimately become the morahty 
of states. 

"The fact that the sense of community among 
the peoples of the earth has gone so far that the 
violation of right in one place is felt everywhere, 
has made the idea of a citizenship of the world 
no fantastic dream, but a necessary extension of 
the unwritten code of states and peoples." 
(Kant.) 

"The binding cord is not force, but the deep- 
seated feeling of order that is possessed by us 
aU.'' (Hegel.) 

The new German philosophy has anointed the 
present immoraUty of states and thereby fixed it 
as the morahty for individuals. I think these 
philosophers in their characteristic German ex- 
uberance, with its habit of overstatement, have 
been hard on Germany. For the German people 
at large have presumably been acquiring through- 
out the ages the same instincts toward altruism 
as the peoples of other countries. The new Ger- 

303 



THE WAR 

man philosophy has succeeded to a dismal ex- 
tent in its inoculation of the German people, but 
it cannot in the long nm impose its logical ideal 
of reversion to the wild man in the forest on the 
Germans, any more than the old German phi- 
losophy made the Germans replicas of Christ. 

Man never attains to his philosophical ideal; 
but it is just as well that he should see clearly 
its apotheosis before he tries too hard to reach it. 

9§ 

Our enemy now proclaims that his objective 
is the crushing of Britain's world power in the 
interests of mankind. 

Are we justified in retaining if we can what, 
in a by no means unstained past, we have ac- 
quired, or should we hand over our position, 
well and ill gotten, to this new claimant with his 
new culture, for the benefit of the w^orld ? 

Man has a somewhat incurable belief that he 
can manage his own affairs, and we Britons hold 
the faith that our character, ideals, and experi- 
ence fit us to control our own lives and property 
for the general good of mankind, side by side 
with other nations of like mind. The fortunate 
possessors of the greater empire and the greater 
trade are not perhaps the most convincing advo- 

304 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

cates of the principle: "Live and let live." For 
all that, we find it impossible to admit the right 
of any nation to an aggressive policy toward us. 
Germany, after being petrified with surprise at 
our intervention, now accuses us of having 
planned the war, and dehberately attacked her. 
It is divinely easy to claim things both ways 
when you are at war. We all see just now rather 
as in a glass, darkly. And yet, with an immense 
empire, an immense trade, and nothing that we 
wanted anywhere, with a crop of serious social 
and poKtical troubles on hand, "a contemptible 
little army," a tradition of abstention from Eu- 
ropean quarrels, a free trade policy, a demo- 
cratic system of government, a foreign minister 
remarkable up to then for his services to peace, 
and a "degenerate, wealth-rotted, huckstering" 
population, it still seems to us, (always except- 
ing our handful of pre-war Jingoes) as improbable 
as it once seemed to Germany, that we hatched 
and set on foot such a wildcat enterprise. 

10 § 

"A war of exhaustion." How often we use 
those words ! They are current in all the belliger- 
ent countries, and in all they are imreally used, 
as yet. But they are, I fear, literally true. It 

305 



THE WAR 

is a war which — save for some happy chance — 
can hardly end till one group or the other have 
no longer the men to hold their lines. The sway 
of the fighting is of no great moment; it does not 
seem to matter where precisely the killings maim- 
ing, and captm-ing go on, so long as they do go 
on, with a certain mathematical regularity. A 
year or so hence, when the total disablement is 
nearer twenty than ten millions, the meaning of 
the words will be a Httle clearer, and they will 
probably only then be used by the side whose 
united population is still more than twice that 
of the other side. Two years hence they will be 
seen to have meant exactly what they said. All 
the swinging from optimism to pessimism and 
back again, the cock-a-hoop of the press one day, 
the dirge of the press the next; the alarms and 
excursions about the failure of this or that — ^they 
are all storms in teacups. The wills of the na- 
tions fighting are equally engaged, and will not 
break; the energies will not break; the food will 
probably not quite fail; the money will be foimd 
somehow; but the human flesh will give out, in 
time — that^s all; on which side it will give out 
first may be left to the child who can count up 
to two. No glory about this business — ^just ding- 
dong shambles ! 

If one beheved, with a certain Englishman, that 
306 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

there was no real struggle of ideals involved, 
these words, '^a war of exhaustion/^ meaning 
what they really do, would be too intolerable even 
to think of. He who denies this to be a struggle 
of ideals may have a brilliant intellect, but he 
can surely have none of that iustinctive percep- 
tion of the essence and atmosphere of thiags 
which is a so much surer guide than reason. He 
has perceived doubtless that autocratists and 
force-worshippers ia England, in Russia, in Italy 
(there are but few in France) are fighting against 
the Central Empires as fm-iously as if they were 
the most ardent lovers of hberty; and that the 
democrats and humanists in Central Europe are 
fighting for their countries as devotedly as their 
force-worshipping rulers, and he has thought: 
'^This is a mere bliad game of 'Kill your neigh- 
bour,' with nothing real at stake save the ag- 
grandisement of one group of countries or the 
other.'' But behind all this, is the psychological 
heart of the matter — the states of mind in the 
belligerent countries before they began to fight. 
There are racial temperaments to which certain 
ideals seem to be fatal. The Teuton of all men 
requires the Christian, or shall we say the human- 
istic, ethic, to modify something science-ridden, 
overbearing, and heady in his soul. The Teuton, 
before the new philosophy of self-expansion at 

307 



THE WAR 

all costs laid hold on him, was welcome, from 
his many great qualities, in a world of other 
men. But his was the last nature that could 
afford to succimib wholesale to the faith that his 
race was the only race that mattered. If he 
could see himself, he would realise that the very 
thoroughness and over-exaltation of his nature 
made it ruinous for him to tamper with this par- 
ticular ideal, for he was boimd sooner or later to 
run it to death, to the danger and alarm of all 
other races. With the best will in the world no 
one outside Germany could miss this latter-day 
Teutonic absorption in self; the Teuton has dinned 
it into every ear, and forgotten, in so doing, that 
we should not take off discount for temperamental 
extravagance of diction. The German imperial- 
istic patriot has done an incalculable, perhaps a 
fatal, harm to the country he loves so passion- 
ately. But even discounting for rhodomontade, no 
observer who has feelers can fail to be aware of 
the spiritual change in Germany. I remember one 
tiny instance out of many — a mere straw show- 
ing the direction of the wind. The winter before 
the war there were in a certain hotel in Egypt 
four Teutons. A quiet, dignified old man, his 
tiny, quiet, dignified wife, and their two big sons. 
The difference between the two generations was 
distressing. In the older, such an air of unas- 

308 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

suming goodness, in the younger a demeanour 
so intolerant and domineering; those two sons 
were respectful and good to their father and 
mother; but toward the rest of the world — to 
natives, English, Americans, and other small fry 
— they displayed an astounding contempt. 

The Berhn Concordia has just issued maxims 
of conduct to the German people, in a Httle book 
called '^Let Germany Learn/ ^ I cull two of 
them: "The soft corner in your heart for the 
foreigner will never give you his affection, but 
only his contempt!'^ and: "Everything depends 
on your own strength/' 

It would be easy to make out some sort of 
case against any of the belligerent nations. It 
would not be easy to show that any nation save 
Germany was in that peculiar state of f uU-blooded 
self-confidence which upholds the Will to Power, 
and denies the Will to Equity. 



11 § 

It seems certain that the practice of doping 
soldiers with ether, or other spirit before an 
attack, has been largely resorted to by certain 
nations in this war. Nothing that is happening 
so illuminates the nature of modern warfare; 
illustrates more utterly the absorption of human 

309 



THE WAR 

bodies and souls into the machines that are 
crashing into each other. Men have become 
mere lumps of coal to be converted into driving 
power. And in supreme moments, lest the be- 
wildered spirit, brought up to peace, should move 
hand or foot in protest or recoil, that spirit is first 
stolen away. The usage is not prompted by 
motives of mercy, yet has in it a kind of awful 
humanity. Granted the premises, who dare 
grudge this anodyne to the doomed ? 

Verily on every man who in time of peace 
speaks or writes one word to foster bad spirit 
between nations, a curse should rest; he is part 
and parcel of that malevolence which at last sets 
these great engines, fed by lumps of human coal, 
to crash along, and pile up against each other, 
in splintered wreckage. Only too well he plays 
the game of those grim schemers to whose ac- 
count He the death, the dehumanisation, the de- 
spair of millions of their brother men. 

12 § 

A wonderful night to-night, so that the spirit 
goes forth a httle, enters the harmony of things, 
drinks the magic of the world. How beauty 
moves the heart! And war cannot destroy it, 
cannot take from us the feeling that — ^living or 

310 



SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR 

dead — ^we belong to such perfection. It cannot 
take the voice from the streams, remove the 
flight of small wings in the darkness, the gleam 
of moonlight, the whisper of night about us, nor 
that bright star. It cannot take from within us 
the soul that vibrates to loveliness, to the imiversal 
rhythm round us. 

If in this war the figures of cruelty and death 
have surpassed themselves in darkness, the figure 
of humanity has never been so radiant and so 
lovely. Perhaps we do not know enough what 
man was really like in past ages, to compare him 
with man to-day. But it does seem as if he had 
grown in power for evil, and even more in power 
for good. Or perhaps it is only that, being more 
sensitive and highly strung, the story of his doings 
is altogether more poignant. 

From the letters of a young French painter, 
who, after months in the trenches, disappeared in 
an engagement on the 7th of April, 1915, I quote 
these sayings: 

"You know what I caU religion — that which 
binds together in man all his thoughts of the uni- 
versal and of the eternal, those two forms of 
God! . . . Don't let's lose hope; the trials of 
hope are many, but all beauty lives for ever. . . . 
The dead won't hurt the spring! . . . Did you 
see yesterday's sun? How noble the country is, 

311 



THE WAR 

and how good Nature ! She seems to say to him 
who hstens that nothing will be lost. . . . We 
know not whether all this violence and disorder 
may not be leading us toward a crowning good. . . . 
Out of this torment we shall be left with one 
great aspiration toward pity, fraternity, and 
goodness. . . . Never has life brought me such 
abundance of noble feelings; never, perhaps, have 
I had such freshness of sensibility for their record- 
ing; such a sensation of safety in my spirit. . . . 
We spend the days like children. . . . And the 
good from this war will be the making young 
again the hearts of those who have been through 
it." 

And his last written words: "Beloved Mother, 
I send you all my love. AVhatever happens, life 
will have been beautiful.'' 

Not to many is given so clear a soul as this, so 
fine a spirit. Peace and loveliness be with him, 
and with all who die like him before their time, 
following the light within them. And with all 
who live on in this world of beauty, where the 
dead harm not the spring, may there be — in his 
words — the longing for pity, fraternity, and 
goodness ! 



312 



TOTALLY DISABLED 

(From The Observer, 1916) 

If I were that! Not as one getting into the 
yellow leaf, but with all the spring-running in 
me. If I lay, just turning my eyes here and 
there ! How should I feel ? 

How do they feel — those helpless soldiers and 
sailors already lying in the old ballroom of the 
"Star and Garter"? The ghostly officer is ever 
crying in that hospital ward : 

^^ Stick it, men! Stick it! Only for life! 
Stick it !^' 

Only for life — how many years! In the year 
only three hundred and sixty-five awakenings; 
only all those returns from merciful sleep ! 

"Stick it, men! Stick it!" 

Totally disabled — ^incurably helpless! No! 
One can't realise what it feels like to be caught 
young and strong in such a net; to be caught — 
not for your own folly and excesses, not through 
accident or heredity, but as reward for giving 
yourself body and soul to your country. Better 
so, more easily borne; and yet how much more 
ironically tragic ! 

Who knows what the freedom of limbs means, 
till he has lost it ? Who can measure the ecstasy 

313 



THE WAR 

of vigour, till every power of movement has been 
cut off? Who really grasps what it's like to lie 
like a log dependent for everything on others — 
save those who have to? Think of the trout in 
the streams; of the birds of the air, the winged 
creatures innumerable, think of each beast and 
creeping thing — can one even imagine them with- 
out movement ? Men, also, are meant to be free 
of their world, masters of their limbs and senses. 
They who He helpless are no longer quite bodies, 
for the essence of body is movement; already 
they are almost spirits. It is as if, in passing, 
one looked at minds, nearly all in the heyday of 
consciousness and will. 

Sometimes I vaguely fancy that after violent 
death a man's spirit may go on clinging above the 
earth just so long as his normal life would have 
nm; that a spirit rived before its time wanders 
till such date as consciousness would have worn 
itself out in the body's natural death. If that 
random fancy were true, we to-day would all be 
passing among unseen crowds of these rived 
spirits, watching us, without envy perhaps, being 
freer than ourselves. But those who lie hope- 
lessly disabled, having just missed that enfran- 
chisement, are tied to what still exists, and yet 
in truth have died already. Of all men they have 
the chance to prove the mettle of the human soul 

314 



TOTALLY DISABLED 

— that mysterious consciousness capable of such 
heights and depths; no, not a greater chance than 
men tortiu'ed by long solitary confinement, or 
even than those who through excess or through 
heredity lie for ever helpless — ^but yet so great a 
chance that they are haloed for all of us happier 
ones who are free of our limbs and our lives. 
Some among those prisoned spirits must needs 
shrink and droop, and become atrophied in the 
long helplessness of a broken body. But many 
will grow finer — according to their natures — some 
pursuing the ideal of recompense in another 
world; some, in the stoic behef that serenity and 
fortitude are the fine flowers of life, unconsciously 
following the artist's creed — ^that to make a per- 
fect thing, even if it be only of his own spirit, is 
in itself all the reward. 

Whichever it be, slow decay or slow perfecting, 
we others approach them with heads bowed, in 
as great reverence as we give to the green graves 
of our brave dead. And if pity — that pity which 
to some, it seems, is but ignoble weakness — ^be 
not driven from this earth, then with pity we 
shall nerve our resolve that never shall anything 
be lacking to support or comfort those who gave 
all for us and are so broken by their sacrifice. 

As I write the sun is hot for the first time this 
year, and above the snow spring is in the air- 

315 



THE WAR 

Under Richmond Hill the river will be very- 
bright, winding among trees not yet green. And 
the helpless who are lying there already will be 
thinking: ^I shall never walk under trees again — 
nor by a riverside./ 

If one dwells too much on the miseries this world 
contains, there must come a moment when one 
will say: 'Life's not worth living; I will end it!' 
But by some dispensation, few of us reach that 
point — too sanely selfish, or saved by the thought 
that we must work to reduce the sum of misery. 

For these greatest of all sufferers — ^these help- 
less and incurable — can we do too much — ever 
reach the word : Enough ? 

To you, women of Great and Greater Britain, 
it has fallen to raise on Richmond Hill this refuge 
and home for our soldiers and sailors totally dis- 
abled. Where thirty-two are now lying, there 
will soon be two hundred more. Nearly all my 
life I have known the spot on which this home 
will stand — and, truly, no happier choice could 
have been made. If beauty consoles — and it 
can, a little — ^it is there in all the seasons; a be- 
nign English beauty of fields and trees and water 
spread below, under a wide sky. 

One himdred thousand pounds you need to 
raise this monimnient of mercy in tribute to the 
brave. If it were five himdred thousand you 

316 



TOTALLY DISABLED 

would give it; for is not this monument to be the 
record and token of your gratitude, your love, 
and your pity? Each one of you, I think, how- 
ever poor, must wish to lay one brick or stone of 
the house that is to prove your ministering. 

If the misery through this war could be bal- 
anced in scales, I do not think men's suffering 
would puU down that of wives, and mothers, sis- 
ters, daughters; but this special suffering of in- 
curable disablement — this has been spared you, 
who yet by nature are better at enduring than 
men. It has been spared you; and in return you 
have vowed this home for the helpless; a more 
sacred place than any chiu-ch, for within it every 
hour of day and night, pain will be assuaged, de- 
spair be overcome, actual living tenderness be 
lavished. 

When you have built this refuge for the pris- 
oners of fate, when you have led them there to 
make out the rest of their Hves as best they can 
— remember this: Men who are cut off in their 
youth from life and love will prize beyond all 
things woman's sympathy, and the sight of 
woman's beauty. Give, your money to build; 
your hands to lead them home; and, when they 
are there, take them your sympathy, take them 
your beauty ! 



317 



CARTOON 

(From " The English Nation," 1916) 

... I cannot describe the street I turned into, 
then, like no street I have ever been in; so long, 
so narrow, so regular, yet somehow so unsub- 
stantial; one had continually a feehng that, walk- 
ing at the gray houses on either side, one would 
pass through them. I must have gone miles 
down it without meeting even the shadow of a 
human being; till, just as it was growing dusk, I 
saw a young man come silently out, as I suppose, 
from a door, though none was opened. I can de- 
pict neither his dress nor figure; like the street 
he looked unsubstantial, and the expression on 
his shadowy face haunted me, it was so like 
that of a starving man before whom one has set 
a meal, then snatched it away. And now, in the 
deepening dusk, out of every house, young men 
like him were starting forth in the same mysterious 
manner, all with that hungry look on their almost 
invisible faces. 

Peering at one of them, I said: 
"What is it — ^whom do you want?'' 
But he gave me no answer. It was too dark 
now to see any face; and I had only the feeling 

318 



CARTOON 

of passing between presences as I went along, 
without getting to any turning out of that end- 
less street. Presently, in desperation, I doubled 
in my tracks. 

A lamplighter must have been following me, 
for every lamp was lighted, giving a faint flicker- 
ing greenish glare, as might lumps of phosphores- 
cent matter hung out in the dark. The hungry, 
phantom-like young men had all vanished, and I 
was wondering where they could have gone, 
when I saw — some distance ahead — a sort of 
grayish whirlpool stretching across the street, 
imder one of those flickering marsh-Hght looking 
lamps. A noise was coming from that swirl, 
which seemed to be raised above the ground — a 
ghostly swishing, as of feet among dry leaves, 
broken by the gruntings of some deep sense 
gratified. I went on till I could see that it was 
formed of human figures slowly whirling round the 
lamp. And suddenly I stood still in horror. Every 
other figure was a skeleton, and between danced 
a young girl in white — ^the whole swirling ring 
was formed alternately of skeletons and gray- 
white girls. Creeping a little nearer stiU, I could 
tell that these skeletons were the yoimg men I 
had seen starting out of the houses as I passed, 
having the same look of awful hunger on their 
faces. And the girls who danced between them 

319 



THE WAR 

had a wan, wistful beauty, turning their eyes 
to their partners whose bony hands grasped theirs, 
as though begging them to return to the flesh. 
Not one noticed me, so deeply were they all ab- 
sorbed in their mystic revel. And then I saw 
what it was they were dancing round. Above 
their heads, below the greenish lamp, a dark thing 
was dangling. It swung and turned there, never 
still, like a joint of meat roasting before a fire — 
the clothed body of an elderly man. The green- 
ish lamplight glinted on his gray hair, and on 
his features, every time the face came athwart 
the light. He swung slowly from right to left, 
and the dancers as slowly whirled from left to 
right, always meeting that revolving face, as 
though to enjoy the sight of it. What did it 
mean— these sad shapes rustling round the ob- 
scene thing suspended there ! What strange and 
awful rite was I watching by the lamp's ghostly 
phosphorescence? More haimting even than 
those hungry skeletons and wan gray girls, more 
haunting and gruesome, was that dead face up 
there with the impress still on it of bloated life; 
how it gripped and horrified me, with its pale, 
fishy eyes, and its neck thick-rolled with flabby 
flesh, turning and tiu-ning on its invisible spit, to 
the sound of that weird swishing of dead leaves, 
and those grunting sighs ! Who was it they had 

320 



CARTOON 

caught and swung up there^ like some dead crow, 
to sway in the winds? This gibbeted figure, 
which yet had a look of cold and fattened power 
— what awful crime toward these skeleton youths 
and bereaved gray-wan maidens could it be expi- 
ating? 

Then with a shudder I seemed to recognise 
that grisly thing — suddenly I knew: I was watch- 
ing the execution of the Past ! There it swung ! 
Gibbeted by the Future, whom, through its mani- 
fold lusts it had done to death ! And seized with 
panic I ran forward through the fabric of my 
dream, that swayed and rustled to left and right 
of me. . . . 



321 



HARVEST 

(From The Book of The Homeless, 1916) 

The sky to-night looks as if a million bright 
angels were passing — a, gleaming cloud-mesh 
drawn across the heavens. One star, very clear, 
shines beside a full moon white as the globe- 
campion flower. The hills and valleys, the corn- 
stooks, casting each its shadow, the gray boles 
of the beeches — all have the remoteness of an 
ineffable peace. And the past day was so soft, 
so glamorous; such a hum, such brightness, and 
the harvest going on. . . . 

These last years millions have died with energy 
but one-third spent; millions more unripe for 
death wiU yet herald us into the long shades 
before these shambles cease — boys born just to 
be the meat of war, spitted on each other^s red- 
dened bayonets, without inkling of guilt or knowl- 
edge. To what shall we turn that we may keep 
sane, watching this green, unripe com, field on 
field, being scythed by Death for none to eat? 
There is no solace in the thought that Death is 
nothing! — save for those who still believe they 
go straight to paradise. To us who dare not know 
the workings of the Unknowable, and in our 

322 



HARVEST 

heart of hearts cannot tell what, if anything, be- 
comes of us — ^to us, the great majority of the 
modern world — ^life is valuable, good, a thing 
worth hving out for its natural span. For, if 
it were not, long ere this we should have sat with 
folded arms, lifting no hand till the last sighing 
breath of the human race had whispered itself 
out into the wind, and a final darkness come; sat, 
like the Hindu Yogi, watching the sim and moon 
a little, and expired. The moon would be as 
white, and the sun as golden if we were gone, the 
hills and valleys as mysterious, the beech-trees 
just as they are, only the stooks of com would 
vanish with those who garner them. If life were 
not good we should make of ourselves dust in- 
diiferently — we human beings; quietly, peacefully 
— ^not in murderous horror reaped by the curving 
volleys, mown off by rains of shrapnel and the 
long yellow scythe of the foul gases. But life is 
good, and no Hving thing wishes to die; even they 
who kill themselves, despairing, resign out of 
sheer love of life, out of craving for what they 
have found too mutilated and starved, out of 
yearning for their meed of joy cruelly frustrated. 
And they who die that others may live are but 
those in whom the life-flame burns so hot and 
bright that they can feel the life and the longing 
to live in others as if it were their own — ^more 

323 



THE WAR 

than their own. Yes, life carries with it a very 
passion for existence. 

To what, then, shall we turn that we may keep 
sane, watching this harvest of too young deaths, 
the harvest of the brave, whose stooks are raised 
before us, casting each its shadow in the ironic 
moonhght ? Green corn ! 

If, having watched those unripe blades reaped 
off and stacked so pitifully, watched the great 
dark Wagoner clear those unmellowed fields, we 
let their sacrifice be vain; if we sow not, here- 
after, in a peaceful earth that which shall be- 
come harvest more golden than the world has 
seen — ^then shame on us, unending, in whatever 
land we dwell. . . . 

This harvest night is still. And yet, up there, 
the bright angels are passing. One star ! 



324 



AND— AFTER? 



AND— AFTER? 

(Prom The Observer, 1916) 



PRELUDE 



Peace ! The thought of it has become almost 
strange. Yet, we must face that thought, or 
we shall be as unprepared for it as we were for 
war. Practical men are fighting this war, practi- 
cal men will make the peace that comes some day. 
And this unpractical pen ventures no speculation 
on how it will be brought about; it jots down 
merely some of the wider thoughts that throng, 
when for a moment the vision of peace starts up 
before the mind. 

Statesmen have said that the sequel of this war 
must be a League for Peace — a League for the 
enforcement by international action of interna- 
tional right. Whether that can be brought about 
at a Round Table Conference of the belligerents, 
or whether the League must be formed by the 
victorious AUies with the adherence of the neutral 
countries, and the Central Empires invited to fall 
in with their conclusions, on pain of ostracism, 
I hazard here no opinion. But, by whichever 

327 



AND— AFTER? 

means the League for Peace is formed, it will be 
valueless unless three elements of security are 
present. Due machinery to secure time for the 
arbitration of dispute; due force to secure sub- 
mission to such arbitration; due intention on the 
part of individual nations to serve the League 
loyally for the good of all. And the greatest of 
these three is the last. 

The strength of a League for Peace will depend 
before all on the conduct of each separate nation. 
We in this country cannot control the faith, con- 
duct, or stability of the other members of the 
League; we can control our own. 

However it ends, this war must leave the bitter- 
est feehngs. League for Peace or none, there will 
remain for this country a menace from without. 

If Germany were what is called "crushed" — 
a queer notion in connection with sixty-five 
millions of people, she would smoulder with such 
a fire of vengeance that a victorious British na- 
tion, slumbering in dreams of security, waxing 
fat and swollen-headed, would in a few years' 
time be in as great danger as ever. If Germany 
be merely shorn of her pretensions, and forced 
back within her former boundaries, then, unless 
good fortune bring her a social revolution and 
the comparative blessings of democracy, Ger- 
many may be much the same as she has been, a 
soldier-ridden state, quickly or slowly gathering 

328 



PRELUDE 

force, to reforge the iron machinery of the Prus- 
sian soul, and lead the armoured dance again. 
Stimg to the quick by memory of mistake, know- 
ing that she misjudged our nature and our power, 
she will not make mistake a second time. How- 
ever ardently the successful may desire to forget 
— ^it takes two to bury the hatchet. Let no one 
think that Germany will forget. Should we, if 
we were beaten, or even badly thwarted ? 

The writer is as great a lover of peace as any 
who will resent his suggestion that enmity will 
not readily be changed. But it is well to remem- 
ber that the menace from without is only in- 
creased by forgetting that human nature is fun- 
damentally the same all the world over; and still 
more increased by not remembering that what we 
dream and desire is not as a rule what we can 
obtain. Granted, that all must hope and strive 
for the constitution of a League for Peace, and 
aim at making its conditions permanent, it will 
still be folly to blink the contingency of further 
war for years to come. 

The vaHdity of such a league will hang on the 
first years. Keep it intact, enforce respect for 
its decisions, get merits minds used to it, and after 
a short span nothing is more unlikely than that 
they will forego its blessings. But mihtarism will 
automatically and proportionately decrease, only 
as men gain confidence in the Leaguers authority, 

329 



AND— AFTER? 

recognising at last that an impartial justice may 
apply to nations every bit as well as to individ- 
uals, when there is the force of general consent 
behind it. Given a generation of its rule, and 
the nations will no longer carry daggers to stab 
each other in the back or swords to avenge their 
'honour.' There is no need for premature dis- 
armament. Recognition of the menace from 
without will not harm a League for Peace during 
its first years, so long as we shy at all spirit of 
aggression and are loyal to its first principle of 
'All for one, and one for all.' 

But peace will also bring to us in England the 
menace from within which was visible before the 
war began, as it is with every nation the menace 
of its individual failings, of its rankness and its 
uncompleted justice, its riot after riches at the ex- 
pense of national health, its exaggerated party 
strife, its penny wisdom and pound folly, its lack 
of an ideal, and perpetual drifting it knows not 
whither. If, when the war ends we remain a 
nation, masters of oiu* own hves — and there is no 
Briton who is not convinced that we shall — the 
menace from within must again be faced; faced 
with a stouter heart and a quicker brain; faced 
at last with some sort of corporate will to that 
victory over ourselves, so much more difficult to 
win than over hostile fleets and fortresses. To 
win the war, and thereafter lose to our own 

330 



PRELUDE 

weakness, would cap the event with irony in- 
deed! 

It is the fashion with some to talk ghbly of 
this war as if it were a purge that will drain from 
our state innmnerable ills. The war's honour- 
able necessity none of us dispute, but it has in 
truth only the one advantage of having revealed 
to us and others our quality, re-established our 
faith in ourselves. That quahty, that faith, to be 
of any lasting use, will have to stand not only the 
dreadful spasm of war, but the long exhaustion, 
the manifold increase of economic stress and social 
trouble that will infalHbly begin when the war 
ends. Unless we are resolved to carry on our 
effort of sacrifice, good-will, and courage long into 
the future, the last state of this land will be worse 
than the first. The purge that we like to speak 
of will be proven nothing but a debauch, paid for, 
like all debauches, by lassitude and spleen. 

All national energy at the moment is inevitably 
bent to the ending of a state of things dreadful 
to every man and woman Hving; but while doing 
this with all our might, we need to keep ahve in 
our minds the feeling that the fight is not for 
mere gratification of the passion to down our 
foes, not just a spurt of military heroism to be 
drowned in the drink and applause of victory, 
but a fight for something abiding in oin-selves and 
in the world; for spiritual, not material ends. 

331 



AND— AFTER? 

If, even while we are at war, we cannot keep 
the feeling that what we are fighting for is a 
permanent and steady advance in the just and 
reasonable life of nations, beginning with ourselves, 
we had better never have fought, for at the end 
we shall but have added to our vanity, and taken 
from the stock of our patience, our humanity, and 
our sense of justice. And so the feelings of the 
present are linked with the feelings and necessi- 
ties that will arrive with peace. If the fine 
phrases we have used, and are still using, about 
liberty, humanity, democracy, and peace are 
not genuinely felt, they will come home to us 
and roost most vilely. By the outside world we 
shall be judged according to the measure of 
actuahty we give hereafter to the claim we now 
make of being champion of freedom and human- 
ity; and only according to our inward habit of 
thought during the war shall we be able to act 
when it is over. We can do nothing now, perhaps, 
save prosecute the fight to its appointed end; but if 
we are not to turn out fraudulent after the event, 
it is already time to feel ahead; to accustom our 
minds to the thought of the future efforts, imperial 
and social, needful to meet future dangers, and to 
fulfil the trusts we shall have taken up. 

From facile imaginings and Utopian dreams of 
a purged social life and a fortified morale, to the 

332 



PRELUDE 

real conditions that this war will leave, is likely 
to be the farthest cry any of us will ever hear. 
We cannot have it both ways. If war, as most 
of us believe, is a terrible calamity, it will not 
leave an improved world. A sloppy optimism is 
not the slightest good, no more than a deliberate 
pessimism. "It will be all right after the war!'' 
is, no doubt, the attitude of many minds just 
now. It will only be all right after the war if, 
with all the might of a sustained national will, we 
take care that it is. A great and solemn oppor- 
tunity, the greatest our country has ever known, 
will be there, to be made or marred. The records 
of history are not too cheering, and experience 
of himaan nature in the past brings no very happy 
augury — ^for, after too great effort comes reaction. 
But this age has higher aspirations, more self- 
consciousness than any that has gone before. 
To turn the possible calamity of this war to bless- 
ing, we shall have to set our foot on fatalism. 
There is no real antagonism between the doc- 
trines of determinism and free will. When things 
have happened, we see that they must have hap- 
pened as they did, but how does this affect the 
freedom of our wiU before they happen — ^before 
we know which way they will turn out? Men 
and nations are what they make themselves. 
What are we going to make ourselves — ^After? 
333 



AND— AFTER? 

II 

FREEDOM AND PRIVILEGE 

What is this thing called the British Empire? 
A family of children ruled by a mother or a gath- 
ering of kinsfolk mider the roof of one ideal? Is 
it in reality an empire or a confederacy ? It has 
been the first, it is fast becoming the second. 

Imperialism is governed for good or ill by the 
principle that miderlies it. At the time of the 
American War of Independence the British Gov- 
ernment stood for the principle of domination; 
even so late as the Boer War there is much doubt 
whether, for the moment at least, it stood for 
anything very different. A great change has 
come. The British Empire stands now, as it 
never yet stood, for the principle, ^Live and let 
live'; for coherence through common ideals and 
affections, rather than for coherence through 
force. In this war we have not ceased to as- 
sert that, besides the preservation of our own 
safety, we fight for the independence of little 
countries and the rights of nations to settle their 
own affairs. By this declared championship, un- 
less we wish to bring down poetic justice on our 
heads, we have consecrated the principle of free- 
dom within the confederacy of the British Em- 

334 



FREEDOM AND PRIVILEGE 

pire; we have abrogated the right of coercion. 
Whether we realise it or no, we have fixed our 
national attitude. 

_When the war is over, the feeling of Britain 
toward her kindred will be warmer and more 
generous than it has ever been; they have stood 
side by side with us like men and brothers, in 
touching loyalty. And the feeling in the kindred 
countries will be warmer and fuller of respect; 
they have seen the Old Country on her trial, have 
seen that she did not fail of what the world ex- 
pected from her; seen that she had stuff in her 
beyond their hopes — for a new country is ever 
inclined to impatience, even to a certain con- 
tempt for an old country. It was just as well 
for Britain^s reputation with her kinsfolk that 
this war came. 

Yes, we shall be a true confederacy, a great 
democratic confederacy, bound in honour to 
observe toward the world the principles that it 
observes toward itself; to keep its hands clean of 
narrow and provincial patriotism, of that raw 
overriding of the rights and interests of others, 
the ugliness of which we have just seen in the 
violation of Belgium, the Nemesis of which we 
are about to see. 

And, looking first at home, we have got to 
get used now, at once, while we are still fighting, 
before we have the leisure and the energy to 

335 



AND— AFTER? 

revive old animosities and party cries, to the 
idea that civil strife in Ireland after this war is 
over would be criminal Imiacy, making us the 
play-boy of the world, and destroying the pres- 
tige we shall have gained. It seems that our 
statesmen now recognise this. But whatever 
seems to settle the Irish question in time of war, 
may not survive the strain of the peace that fol- 
lows. If the lamentable cleavage in Ireland reap- 
pears — as it well may, for it is based on such real 
differences of temperament — ^let us in England be 
resolute not to be reinvolved in partisanship. 
Let us resolve to force neither one party nor the 
other; confine ourselves to insisting that those 
who object so strenuously to inclusion in an op- 
posite camp shall be as loth to include their op- 
ponents as they are to be included. Only of its 
own free wiU can Ireland ever be made one. If 
the halves be not forced, they will become one 
the faster. Time is the healer; time and forbear- 
ance, given an elastic machinery to encourage 
and ripen reconciliation. Of a surety, renewed 
trouble over Ireland would be the very worst 
augury for the future of an empire that stands, 
and is to stand, for freedom. 

To be trustee for the principle, 'Live and let 
live'; watch-dog against aggression by herself or 
any other; cornerstone of a world so built that all 

336 



FREEDOM AND PRIVILEGE 

peoples, however small and weak, may know that 
they can safely work out their own destinies — 
that would be for Britain the grand ideal. But 
the British Empire can only hope to stand for it 
by keeping the form of a free confederacy, by 
the most rigid scrutiny of its own conduct, and 
by developing the feeling that it is beneath im- 
perial dignity to wrest material benefit from the 
losses of others. 

When the war began we were in what is com- 
monly caUed 'a tidy mess/ If we really want to 
extract from the furnace of this fearful conflagra- 
tion some gold of comfort, we shall see to it that 
we do not go back to the deadlock of futile and 
bitter strife that was then paralysing the coim- 
try's soul. We shall see to it over Ireland; and 
over the woman's question. Strife is the very- 
condition of life and human progress, but in the 
name of reason let us have it over real live issues, 
not over those on which the national conscience 
has already in secret given judgment. Will not 
the first act of justice be the giving of the vote to 
women, on the same terms as to men — ^with, per- 
haps, some limitation of age to equalise numbers, 
since the preponderance of women is brought 
about mainly by the less dangerous nature of their 
lives ? A more humiliating or poisonous relation 
than that which prevailed between the sexes in 

337 



AND— AFTER? 

this country before the' war, over the question of 
the vote, can hardly be conceived. In the su- 
preme appeal to our patriotism, that grievous 
trouble, that mischievous irritation, has vanished. 
The war has exorcised mutual exasperation, re- 
foimded mutual faith, healed many woimds, laid 
the ghosts of many doubts and argimients. The 
old bogeys are gone — ^that women are more belli- 
cose than men; that they are less beUicose than 
men; that national safety would be imperilled 
one way or the other. The old plea is gone — 
that, since women do not fight and suffer for the 
state, they are not worthy to vote for her — ^gone, 
dispersed by service, sacrifice, and suffering. 
Every man has had to ask his heart which he 
would rather do: Go, as a man goes, to the 
trenches, or sit at home as a woman has had to 
do, waiting for news of his life or death. And 
every man knows the answer. 

The women of Britain have put themselves and 
their claims aside, to work and suffer for the 
coimtry of which they are not yet citizens. It 
will be too black altogether if, after all they have 
gone through, they are again refused admittance 
to that citizenship. 

Women who do not want the vote need never exer- 
cise it; women who think the vote bad for their 
sex will still be free as air, when the vote has 

338 



FREEDOM AND PRIVILEGE 

been given, to organise their sex against use of the 
deadly thing. But to contiaue after this war to 
debar from being citizens, if they so wish, the 
hundreds of thousands of women who have served 
as loyally as men, and suffered more; to hang up 
again in hopeless chancery a measure of common 
justice that has long commended itself to nearly 
all the best minds in the country; a measure that, 
but for political accidents, would have already 
been granted — ^would be an unspeakable piece of 
national folly and ingratitude. There is surely 
now a general will to give the vote. What our 
minds must be turned to is the need, at the con- 
clusion of the war, to have ready some means by 
which that general desire may be carried into ef- 
fect, and women welcomed into the body politic, 
before the old deadlock difficulties and heartburn- 
ings can begin again. 

It is not my part to suggest to superior wisdom 
what those means should be; but perhaps one 
may express the personal conviction that a 
measure of universal suffrage, granting one vote 
to every man above a certain age (not necessarily 
so young as twenty-one), and one vote to every 
woman possibly over such higher age as would 
equahse the voting power of the sexes; though I 
myself do not fear that inequality — ^that such 
a measure would not affect to any appreciable 

339 



AND— AFTER? 

extent the balance between the great parties in 
the State, and would insure that those parties 
in future sprang from the main cleavages of hu- 
man nature rather than from the accidents of 
privilege. Is it too much to hope that, in heroic 
times, such a measure might be passed by con- 
sent ? Too much to expect that after this struggle 
where all stand shoulder to shoulder, we shall 
feel that a man, however poor, and a woman, 
however humble, has a stake in the country 
which has done so Httle for him or her, yet for 
which he or she is suffering perhaps more than 
the rest of us, and, extending the hand of fellow- 
ship, say: 'It is time you stood shoulder to shoul- 
der with us in peace as well as war.' The voteless 
man ! The woman ! How many of the first will 
have given their lives; how many of the second 
— ^their hearts? Have heroism, death, sacrifice 
gone by privilege of property or sex in this war ? 
Shall we really take the lives, the wounds, the 
sufferings of the many men debarred from citi- 
zenship by mere lack of property, the service and 
sacrifice of innumerable women, and just say: 
* Thank you, helots!' For in a real democracy 
' what is he or she who has no vote, save a helot, 
at the absolute disposal of the enfranchised com- 
munity? It is as the symbol of freedom that the 
vote is so precious ! Granted ! And if, from the 
infancy of this country we had not been sticklers 

340 



THE NATION AND TRAINING 

for symbols, should we now be the free people that 
we are — as peoples go ? 

If there is not to emerge from this commimity 
of suffering, some community of fellowship and 
gladness, some sweeping out of old rancours 
from our hearts and of prejudices from our 
brains, and a resolve to fight the contests of the 
future with a greater generosity — ^then peace will 
be a sorry festival. 

There is so much work to be done, so great a 
fight for the nation's health, ahead. It is time 
the decks were cleared of lumber ! 



ni 

THE NATION AND TRAINING 

We have adopted compulsion, become a mil- 
itarist power! Melancholy consiunmation; but 
for the period of the war it was always, I think, 
a foregone conclusion. What is to happen after? 
How is national security to be guaranteed with- 
out permanent surrender to this mihtarism ? 

Assuming that attention will be paid to re- 
taining due command at sea and in the air, what 
further will be necessary to fit us for our part 
in a League for Peace if it comes, or, if it does 
not come, to make us safe? 

There wiU here be put forward in roughest out- 
341 



AND— AFTER? 

line a notion — ^long in the writer^s mind, but for 
which there has seemed hitherto Httle chance of 
serious consideration — ^with the plea that there is 
really no alternative solution commensurate with 
the need for being thoroughly prepared, no other 
adequate way, in fact, out of a dilemma, short 
of retaining a measure of continental militarism 
repugnant to our traditions and ruinously costly 
to a people in our position. 

Put with the utmost brevity it is this: That all 
boys between the ages of fom-teen and eighteen, 
not then at school, shall pass four months yearly 
in camps, which shall give them continuation 
schooling so far as practicable, technical education 
in the craft, trade, or occupation for which the 
boy is best suited or intends to adopt, together 
with training in all the essentials of a soldier's 
life. At the close of their fourth training the boys 
should be affiliated to territorial regiments, and 
pass at once to one definite period of military 
service, from three to six months, as may be 
necessary to convert them into potential soldiers; 
and that, from that point on, we should rely, as 
hitherto, on purely voluntary service. From such 
a nucleus a really efficient territorial force of at 
least a million could probably be enrolled, and the 
skeleton of a much larger force kept in being. 

The scheme is admittedly heroic, but it could be 
342 



THE NATION AND TRAINING 

as gingerly introduced as seemed good to more 
practical men than is this writer. 

There are in England, Scotland, and Wales 
some 1,500,000 boys between the ages of four- 
teen and eighteen; there are eight months in 
the year when such education and training could 
be carried on. There will be an infinity of camps 
in being before the war is over. And however 
unsuited these camps may be at the moment for 
combining technical instruction with miHtary 
training, many of them could undoubtedly be 
adapted. The chance of so much suitable ma- 
terial at hand, so much organising capacity, and 
so much sense of awakened public spirit and ne- 
cessity, will never come again. Some plan more 
or less heroic has got to be adopted, and it is 
submitted that no other could possibly kill so 
many birds with one stone. For, to the writer, 
this proposal is even more important in relation 
to the menace from within, than in relation to the 
menace from without. 

The worst feature of our social scheme at pres- 
ent — ^the most dangerous flaw in the machine — 
is the waste, the absolute throwing away of the 
years between fourteen and eighteen, the most 
important period of the male life (and, for that 
matter, of the female life), the years when 
physique and character are formed, when the 

343 



AND—AFTER? 

instrument is malleable; years for the most 
part now left to chance and to blind-alley occupar- 
tions. If we want to be a strong and healthy 
nation, this is the weakness of all others to over- 
come. The following is taken from the introduc- 
tion to Mr. Arnold Freeman^s intimate and care- 
ful book, ^'Boy Life and Labour": 

What we need to consider is not the sacrifice of a cer- 
tain number of youths through faulty industrial arrange- 
ments, but the lack of training and the manufacture of 
inefficiency in the majority of boys between school and 
manhood. 

At the present time it would seem to be the consensus 
of opinion of school-teachers, employers, and all those 
who are intimate with the problem, that great masses of 
boys are growing up to manhood inefficient for adult 
work, and incapable of performing the elementary duties 
of home life and citizenship. The truer mode of regarding 
the problem may be illustrated by the following quotation: 

"According to the main statistical sources of infor- 
mation the very serious fact emerges that between 70 
and 80 per cent of the boys leaving elementary schools 
enter unskilled occupations. Thus, even when the boy 
ultimately becomes apprenticed or enters a skilled trade, 
these intervening years from the national point of view 
are entirely wasted. Indeed the boy, naturally reacting 
from the discipline to which school accustomed him, usu- 
ally with abundance of spare time not sufficiently utilised, 
and without educative work, is shaped during these years 
directly toward eviU' (Majority Report of the Poor Law 
Commission. Part VI, Chap. VII.) 

344 



THE NATION AND TRAINING 

Now, if the richer classes of this country could 
be brought face to face with a sight of their own 
boys from fourteen to eighteen planted in this 
morass that boys of the poorer classes have, as a 
matter of course, to struggle through, they would 
marvel that the poorer classes have not long ago 
demanded that it be drained. Working-class 
parents have not demanded this, chiefly because 
the boy from fourteen to eighteen has meant so 
many scanty shillings in the family pocket. 
When shillings are scarce, one more or less seems 
vital. But economically as well as nationally 
speaking, such rotting-down of the boys is griev- 
ously short-sighted. By this scheme, I believe, 
the working classes would be the first to benefit, 
and, after a few years, the last to wish it given up. 
Their ultimate gain would be incalculable, and, 
collectively speaking, their immediate loss even 
would be small. One million five hundred thou- 
sand boys training four months in the year means 
a seeming withdrawal of one boy in three, or half 
a million boys annually, from labour. But the 
number of boys between fourteen and eighteen 
actually employed before the war was only 1,264,- 
000, so that there would be available some un- 
employed toward filling the places of the half 
milHon withdrawn. In the withdrawal, too, of 
so large a number of boys from the labour mar- 

345 



AND— AFTER? 

ket lies some chance of solving a problem that 
will begin to loom as soon as peace comes: How 
to find places for the women whom the war has 
accustomed to work and wages! By this with- 
drawal, also, elderly and imemployed men would 
benefit; we shall want all the help we can 
get to minimise the unemployment that will 
sooner or later follow the war. So far as the 
labour market is concerned, the problem, in fact, 
would be mainly one of adjustment; but boys 
could be paired for their four years of training, 
one taking the other^s job — boy A working 
eight months the first and third years and four 
months the second and fourth years; vice versa 
with boy B. A nation which has achieved in 
these last few months such miracles of organisation 
is surely equal to a task of adjustment no harder 
of accomphshment than that which has long con- 
fronted every militarist country in time of peace, 
and which may at any moment confront this 
country, if it neglects adequate preparation for 
home defence on some such fines. 

Consider the life of the working man at pres- 
ent. The State provides him as a boy with edu- 
cation up to the age of fourteen; provides him as 
a man with labour exchanges, insurances, and 
old-age pensions. The one period which in the 
more fortunate ranks of society is regarded as 

346 



THE NATION AND TRAINING 

above all preparatory for life, is the one period 
of which the State takes no accoimt. It is a 
fatal hole in the ballot. Why should not the 
workers have the privilege for their sons that 
belongs by mere good fortune to the wealthier 
classes — ^the privilege of a training that wiU 
give them greater health, greater knowledge and 
technical skill, better habits^ more self-respect, 
and the power as well as the inclination to defend 
their coimtry if need be ? 

After this war the national readjustments that 
take place to meet the menace from without and 
the menace from within must surely have relation 
to fimdamental necessities, and not merely be 
the top-dressing and timorous expedients that ac- 
company the piping times of a long-unshaken 
peace. 

In the expenditure of large sums to achieve its 
ends, the State need not look for its money back 
this year or next, so long as there is a certainty 
of the money back manifold ten and twenty 
years hence. 

The expense of a national scheme for the train- 
ing and technical education of all boys from four- 
teen to eighteen would have been looked on be- 
fore the war as an insuperable objection. But the 
truly wonderful example of faith shown by the 
Russian Government in cutting off their own 

347 



AND— AFTER? 

colossal revenue from drink at the outbreak of 
the war, and the immediate incalculable advan- 
tage to the strength of the Russian nation that 
accrued thereby, has knocked penny wisdom off 
its perch. 

This is not the time or place, nor am I qualified 
to examine the cost in detail. But, whatever that 
cost, can there be any doubt that the increased 
physical and industrial efficiency, coupled with 
the national security guaranteed by such training, 
would bring the outlay back tenfold within a 
generation ? And can there be any question that 
it would conserve wealth, which adult training 
would but dissipate ? When the war is over 
there will be great numbers of men whose lives 
have been hopelessly jolted, who have to find 
new occupations; men qualified and probably 
only too willing to take positions of technical 
instruction and military training under such a 
scheme. And the boys of the nation, already in- 
fected with desire to stand for something in the 
national security, would fall in with good spirit. 

Apart from the question of expense, opposition 
would come, no doubt, from the employers of 
boy labour, and from the working-class parents 
of boys who are contributing to the family purse. 

Both these objections can surely be met in the 
main by careful organisation and dovetailing of 

348 



THE NATION AND TRAINING 

employment. Only half the boys would be train- 
ing at once; and for the winter months, of great- 
est stress for the poorer classes, none would be 
training; boys' labour is not highly skilled labour; 
it is rarely of a nature that cannot equally well 
be supplied by another boy, and, failing that, by 
women, or men past the prime of work. With 
good-wiU and co-operation it should not surpass 
the wit either of employers or of the officials of 
special boy-labour exchanges to cope with the dis- 
location. A boy's earnings are not vast; when his 
own keep has been paid there remain but few 
shillings for the family exchequer. The value 
of these few shillings is in many cases, however, 
enormous; the loss might be made good by some 
system of insurance. Nor is it inconceivable that 
camp work would produce a small wage that could 
go to the assistance of the boys' families. Ome- 
lets cannot be made without breaking eggs; and 
even if distress were caused at the start, can it 
be seriously weighed against the great ultimate 
benefit to the working classes, and the over- 
whelming advantages of rejuvenation in the blood 
and brain of a whole nation ? The war has shown 
what those who have had to do with camp life 
for boys knew well before — the vast change that 
can be made in the physique and bearing of young 
fellows, by a few months of fresh air and training. 

349 



AND— AFTER? 

If those months are repeated yearly for four 
years, the training combined with civil instruc- 
tion, and followed by a short spell of full military 
service, the country will have not only potential 
soldiers, but real men and citizens at the end. 

This is interference with the liberty of the 
subject ! Yes, but a boy is only a boy. In the 
richer classes he is sent to school till he is eighteen 
without any say whatever in his fate. And as to 
interference with the liberty of the parents: Are 
they not now completely interfered with, in refer- 
ence to their children up to the age of fourteen; 
and is there any sane reason why that interfer- 
ence should not be continued partially, for the 
good of the boys and of us all, up to the age of 
eighteen ? 

The scheme is nothing but a form of mili- 
tarism! Yes, but facts must be faced. After 
the lesson of this war, its appalling suddenness, 
its complete disregard of the law of nations, 
after the hatred it has evoked and the burning for 
revenge it will leave — are we prepared to trust 
our coimtry and all that it stands for, to old-time 
methods and — ^luck? If not, what form of train- 
ing can we have that will be less militarist than 
this? To relapse into our unpreparedness is 
but to court the chances of an attack, to shirk 
our share perhaps of duty rnider a League for 

350 



THE NATION AND TRAINING 

Peace; and to risk being forced into rank mili- 
tarism, in one of those panics certain to come 
freely after such a war. If I thought such a 
scheme of boy training would bolster up privilege, 
foster a dangerous docility, put power into the 
hands of our junkers, and generally convert our 
country into a kind of Germany, I would shun it 
like the devil. To keep boys of that age at it all 
the time would be dangerous; to train them for 
civil and military life four months in the year, 
with one short final period of military service — 
harmless. After the war — ^perhaps not at once, 
but within a few years — ^there wiU almost cer- 
tainly be serious civil troubles, and any such 
scheme of boy training would need to be inaugu- 
rated under the most solemn engagements not 
to employ the youth of the nation in the quelling 
of strikes, civil riot, or what-not. It would be 
for laboiK to fix those guarantees before they gave 
adherence to the plan. Having secured them- 
selves, I believe they might look forward to noth- 
ing but benefit, after the first rubs and jolts. 

Consider, too, that except under som.e such 
scheme there is practically no chance of putting 
into practice another national dream — the re- 
settlement of the land. By attachmg farm lands 
to these camps, town boys could be instructed in 
the difficult work of modem agriculture. Farm 

351 



AND— AFTER? 

workers do not grow on thorn-trees, or even 
spring full-fledged from the brains of ardent re- 
formers. They are made, not bom, and made 
in youth. It is time to begin making them, if 
indeed it is not already too late. No adequate 
land scheme will flourish without machinery on a 
large scale for educating boys in modern farm 
work. 

But there is another aspect of this matter worth 
more than passing attention. If the war ends 
victoriously, Great Britain will bulk very large, 
dangerously large, in the eyes of the world. The 
German cry is: "Great Britain is the tyrant; 
the fleet of England is the menace, threatening 
every country!'' No effort will be left untried 
to din that whisper into every ear, to implant 
that suspicion in every mind. To escape the 
world's jealousy will not be possible. And, if in 
addition to a dominant fleet and possibly a domi- 
nant air service, we preserve militarism on the 
present continental lines, we shall excite — ^what- 
ever the peaceful nature of our conduct and in- 
tentions — the most profound uneasiness and envy 
in quarters where we most wish to be regarded 
with perfect equanimity. On the one hand, then, 
we have the danger of relapsing into a state of 
impreparedness that may provoke another war; 
on the other, the danger of arousing too great 

352 



THE NATION AND TRAINING 

fear and envy by an ostentatious strength, and of 
increasing a burden of armament already too 
heavy on our shoulders. Between these dangers 
lies a path of safety, in the training of our boys. 
But there lies much more than that. There lies 
the grander social future of our country, an in- 
calculable physical, moral, and economic uplift- 
ing; a nation more self-reliant and more eager, 
purged of that don^t-care look, of the town blight 
which was settling on it fast — there is no nation 
suffering from town blight to anything like the 
same extent as ourselves. Just now the war has 
lifted that blight; but with peace it will come 
down again, unless we fight it. 

Is this lamely outlined plan a mere dream, or 
is it a possible, nay, a probable measure, in times 
big with chances; in times such as we may never 
have again for timing up our life, for equalising 
fortune, removing foul places and essential 
weakness ? 

With the suggestion that it is worth thinking 
over, at any rate, the writer leaves the answer 
to those less fatuous than himself. 



353 



AND— AFTER? 

IV 

HEALTH, HUMANITY, AND PROCEDURE 

What were already glaring national ills before 
the war will, afterward, be ills demanding the 
most immediate, sustained, and resolute attention. 

There exists in America a vehicle called the 
'^ rubber-neck" car, in which the tourist is taken 
and shown the interesting features of the neigh- 
bourhood. Before the political machine settles 
down again to work — legislators, editors, business 
men, writers — ^we might all with profit take a 
round trip and see again evils that our country- 
has never really faced in the past, but will have 
to face, and grievously swollen at that, in the 
future. At the back of all lack of effort is lack 
of realisation. Statistics of national problems 
may foster an impersonal and scientific attitude, 
but they do nothing to supply the feeling from 
which alone comes driving force. 

Take our slimas! The powers vested in the 
State or in local bodies, for dealing with slimi 
areas, are obviously either not sufficient or not 
sufficiently put to use. Not, of course, that any 
quick or light-hearted transformation can be ex- 
pected; the roots of this evil are too tortuously 
coiled in economics and natural selfishness. 

354 



HEALTH, HUMANITY, AND PROCEDURE 

Still, just as realisation of our country^s danger 
at the hands of Germany has produced a marvel- 
lous crop of effort and sacrifice, so realisation of 
the equally distressing menace to the country 
from within should produce something similar, 
when patriotic attention is once more free, and 
time and strength at liberty, for fighting dangers 
at home. 

The housing problem desperately needs atten- 
tion; but though much can be done, good gam- 
blers cut their losses, and the adult generation of 
the slums has got more or less to be cut, that 
greater effort may be concentrated on the chil- 
dren. 

The war has focussed attention on the need for 
arresting infant mortahty. Good! But there is 
little use in saving babies if you are not going 
to feed them decently when they are out of 
swaddling-clothes. A big step forward has been 
taken of late years toward the feeding of neces- 
sitous children, both at school and in creches, but 
many more steps need to be taken. If this is not 
a State matter — then nothing is. To neglect the 
nourishment of its children is at once the paltriest 
economy, the least sagacious poHcy, and the 
worst inhumanity of which a nation can be guilty. 
The old-fashioned idea that children must go 
hungry or be fed so as to grow up rickety, be- 

355 



AND— AFTER? 

cause their parents (being ^ rotters^ already) must 
not be rotted further, is a doctrine devoid both of 
common sense and compassion. A nation either 
has a will toward a future, or it has none. If it 
has none, for what* are we fighting this most bloody- 
war? What does our honour matter, or our in- 
dependence either? But the future of a nation 
is its children. As they grow up, healthy, clean, 
hopeful, efficient, so will our future be. As they 
grow up — ^half-f ed, dirty, don^t care, and ignorant, 
so will Britain! If to look after the children 
makes worse paupers of the parents, well — ^let it ! 
Have some courage. Do not be hypnotised by a 
word, and, grasping the shadow, lose the sub- 
stance. Give the children blood in their Httle 
bodies and hope in their little brains. Any de- 
cent parent will be the better for that; the inde- 
cent parent is a loss already, and must be cut. 
Working-class mothers who neglect to feed their 
children better than themselves are rare ex- 
ceptions, nor will a sounder system of State-help 
seriously alter the deepest instinct of human 
nature. The heroism of British soldiers in the 
trenches is no greater than the lifelong heroism 
of British mothers in the slums, struggling against 
want. This is a matter that should not be left to 
the discretion of local bodies. Once the principle 
has been admitted — and who can honestly deny 

356 



HEALTH, HUMANITY, AND PROCEDURE 

that it has? — ^the rest should be simply a question 
of fact medically certified, not here and there, but 
all over the country. Either it is justice and wis- 
dom to feed the children, or it is not, and the 
scruples, however philosophical, of gentlemen pre- 
pared to watch other people^s children go hungry 
should not any longer be indulged. 

The estimated number of school children in 
England and Wales being fed by the State in 
1911-12 was 230,000 out of a school population 
of 5,357,567. The estimated number of this 
school population showing signs of malnutrition is 
variously given at from 10 to 20 per cent. Tak- 
ing it at 15 per cent, or 800,000 children, we have 
more than half a miUion school children wanting 
meals and not getting them. This is appalling. 
There is no other word for it. But when the 
children under school age who need food and are 
not getting it, are added to this number, the pro- 
portions of this national folly and inhumanity 
stagger the brain. It does not yet seem to be 
grasped that these children, who are fighting not 
only against insufficiency of proper food but 
against bad air and bad housing, grow up with so 
much per cent knocked off their national value. 
A stitch in time is supposed to save nine. A 
poimd spent on the age of growth brings back 
many poimds from the age of stability. To those 

357 



AND— AFTER? 

few who ride the doctrine of Liberty to the death 
of national health it may simply be said: So long 
as you have no hope of repeahng compulsory 
education, you have no right to let children re- 
ceive it in an unfit condition. Education and 
decent nourishment are inseparable; and decent 
nourishment is as necessary in the years that 
come before as in the years of schooling. No ! In 
reality the principle is now rooted, and, like 
other things, it's all a question of money. But a 
country with a capital of £16,000,000,000 and an 
income of £2,100,000,000 cannot really afford to 
allow this state of affairs to continue — especially 
after the gold-letting of this war. The state our 
national finances will be in makes it all the more 
imperative that we should have a well-nourished 
and efficient population, or we shall never get out 
of the slough. 

During this war our heroism has gibed at 
liquor. That jovial monster looms nearly as 
large as ever. We shall have a national debt 
after the war of three or four thousand millions, 
perhaps more. And yet the cheapest thing that 
could possibly be done, in the long run, would 
be to increase it and buy up the Hquor trade; 
achieve that dream of Joseph Chamberlain "the 
total and absolute elimination of any idea of 
private gain in the retail sale of liquor," convert 

358 



HEALTH, HUMANITY, AND PROCEDURE 

drink into food to the tune of some eighty mil- 
lions a year; and vastly diminish the number of 
children that require State nourishment and the 
number of underfed men and women. In 1911, 
£162,797,229 was the drink bill of the nation; of 
which it is estimated that about £110,000,00(T 
was spent by the working class. The working 
classes are no more inclined to liquor than the 
rest of the population, but they have obviously 
less to spare for the indulgence of their inclina- 
tion. With proper control of the Hquor traffic 
they wiU perhaps spend half what they spend 
now, extracting therefrom just as much enjoy- 
ment, and most of the other half will go into the 
bodies of themselves and their children, in the 
form of food. 

Before the war one-tenth of our people were 
getting too little food, two-tenths more just bal- 
anced on a knife-edge of bare sufficiency. And 
the great majority of this third of our population 
were too closely or too badly housed for health. 

What is it going to be — after — ^unless our mea- 
sures in regard to food, to housing, and to drink 
are heroic? For heroic measures we shall need 
a keener sense of justice, a larger humanity than 
we have ever had. Though the war may con- 
ceivably not diminish humane feeling in those 
who fight, it blunts the sensibihties of those who 

359 



AND— AFTER? 

do not see its horrors at first-hand. Tales of 
others^ sufferings have become the daily fodder of 
the brain; narratives of death and misery the 
companions of every hour. Alongside the brutali- 
ties and agonies of the war, the injustice and cru- 
elties of normal civil life seem pale and tame. 
Man has only a certain capacity for feeling; one 
expects callousness now toward civil inhumani- 
ties. But must that callousness last after peace 
has come ? If so, we are in a bad way. 

What is it that our modem State is reaching 
after? Presumably health and balance. And 
what are these qualities built on, if not on jus- 
tice? At the back of all social inhumanities will 
be found a lack of reasonable freedom and oppor- 
tunity for some people, and the possession in 
other people of too much freedom and opportu- 
nity. And for the swift redress of social cruelties, 
the thorough attainment of social justice, we 
have at present not only to contend with human 
nature, but with an admitted deficiency in our 
legislative machinery. 

When the chief obstacle to laws is not the cal- 
lousness of public opinion, but a mere block on 
the lines of procedure, some drastic change is 
due, a new departure wanted. Before the war, 
many measures of reform hung in the wind year 
after year, not because there was no public feel- 

360 



HEALTH, HUMANITY, AND PROCEDURE 

ing behind them, not even because there were the 
usual pohtical cleavages concerning them, but 
simply because time could not be found in which 
to pass them. Of such were: Measures for the 
feeding and education of children; the control of 
drink; rural housing; improvement of slum areas; 
furtherance of the minimum wage; reform of the 
Poor Law; of the Divorce Law; of the disability 
that attends the needy in their access to civil 
justice; of the imprisonment of poor persons for 
debt; of the procedure in regard to pauper lima- 
tics; of the prison system; of provision for the 
blind; measures for the better treatment of 
animals. All these and others hung in the wind; 
are they to go on hanging when the war is over ? 
Wanted before, they will be wanted still more 
badly then, because the general conditions of life 
will for some years, perhaps many years, be 
harder, and economic pressure fosters rough and 
unjust treatment. 

Is it too early for a united effort, to think out, 
in readiness for peace, a scheme of parliamentary 
procedure which should afford time for the serious 
and iminterrupted consideration of non-party 
measures and the furtherance of needed reforms? 

Party no longer exists, but they who think it 
has gone for good dwell in a fools' paradise. As 
sure as fate it will spring up again, because it is 

361 



AND— AFTER? 

rooted in temperamental difference. But must it 
come back with all its old cat-and-dog propensi- 
ties and waste of national time? It will, unless 
some method be devised that will remove some 
of party^s unhandsome opportunities, and save it 
from itself. Politicians alone know the difficul- 
ties, many and great, in the way of a better pro- 
cedure. Surely, while faction is in abeyance, 
Parliament will set its wits to overcoming those 
difficulties, so that when the war ends we may 
not witness again the tedious and distressful 
blocking of so many needed measures, that pre- 
vailed aforetime. Party was made for the coxm- 
try, not the country for party; and what was 
tolerated with Job-like patience before this vast 
upheaval is not by any means likely to be toler- 
ated after. Needs will be more insistent; the 
sense of reality much greater; the aspiration 
toward national health a live thing, because it 
will be so desperately necessary. 

Reform of parliamentary procedure is obviously 
the prime precedent for national reform. Shall 
not then the question be even now given all the 
attention that can be spared to it ? What better 
moment — ^when men of all parties are filled with 
the one great thought — our country ! 



362 



A LAST WORD 



A LAST WORD 

One more word before these vapourings cease. 
The national task in this war is still mighty 
enough to absorb all action, but not quite all 
thought, for it is no spasmodic effort, meaning 
nothing to the future. To carry the spirit of to- 
day into a long to-morrow, making of our patriot- 
ism not a mere torrent soon spent and leaving an 
arid plain, but a life-giving, even-flowing river — 
for that one must not lose the sense of continuity, 
one must think ahead. More! One must re- 
solve — resolve that this new unity shall stand 
not only the strain of war, but the greater strain 
of the coming peace. After — ^will come the test. 
Havmg guaranteed our country for the moment 
from destructive powers without, shall we at 
once redehver it to the destructive powers within; 
go back to strife over Ireland, the suffrage, the 
Welsh Church, and the Second Chamber? Or, 
preserving our new-found unity, settle generously 
and in a large spirit those distressful matters, and 
pass on to the real work — to a wider and freer 
view of empire, to the right training of the na- 
tion, the right feeding of the nation, to securing 
for each man, woman, and child a solid founda- 

363 



AND— AFTER? 

tion of health and hope; to the restoration of the 
land, and of our food supply; to clearance of 
mutual suspicions and the stablishing of a new 
trustfulness between labour and capital; to the 
banishment of inhumanity, the freeing of the eyes 
of Justice; and interment of the privilege of class? 
Shall we go back to rolling in the troughs of a 
dirty sea; or set new sail and steer out with a 
true faith in our destiny as the ship of freedom 
and justice? 

"When the devil was sick, the devil a saint would be, 
But when the devil got well, the devil a saint was he !" 

Is that to be our case? Let us not underrate 
the danger. At this moment, and until the war 
is over, we are full of patriotism and good-will. 
We have to be. There's the trouble. Once peace 
comes, and the imifying force of our common peril 
is over — ^what then ? Is the old raw party spirit 
to ramp among us again? If a man would dis- 
cover what danger there is of a return to every 
kind of disunity, let him take a definite national 
question and see how much of his private interest 
or conviction he is prepared to abate for the sake 
of the public good. Mighty little! Are we to 
dissolve again into those "rascally Radicals" and 
those "infernal Tories"; into "grinders of the 
poor" and "discontented devils": into "brutal 
men" and "hysterical females," with all the other 

364 



A LAST WORD 

warring tribes of the Armageddon of Peace ? Are 
we to lose utterly the inspiring vision of our 
country in the squabbles of domestic life? 
Some of that intense vision must go, alas! But 
surely not all. And yet all vrill go unless we 
keep in mind the thought that this war is not an 
end but the means to an end which none of us 
will see, but all of us can further in time of 
peace as well as in time of war; an end for whose 
attainment the blood and treasure now spilled is 
but as a preliminary. 

It will be heart-breaking if from this stupen- 
dous cataclysm no lasting good to the world and 
to Britain can be brought forth. Its horror, even 
now, few realise who are not at the front. One 
who was many months on ambulance duty in the 
French lines wrote these words: 

"They talk of the war ! Let them come close in I Let 
them see lying around emaciated heads with no bodies 
within a couple of hundred yards; let them see the bloody 
confusion of heads and entrails and limbs which is show- 
ered around when a trench is mined; let them see the 
heads with ears and noses bitten off as if by mad dogs; 
let them see the men driven insane by the sights and 
sounds of the battle-field, who turn and rend their com- 
rades and have to be shot down by them; let them come 
where hundreds of wounded men are lying on contested 
ground screaming the whole night through (and not one 
in a million has ever heard a man scream !) and then talk 
of the war!" 

365 



AND— AFTER? 

If from this horror, fought through and endured, 
as we beHeve, for the future of our land and the 
future of mankind, there is to come no blessing, 
no advance to freedom and health and justice 
— what then! Nothing will be easier than to 
take up again the peace life of Britain as it 
was, and worse than it was, because coarsened 
by the passions of war and imbittered by the 
strain of a greater economic stress. Nothing will 
be easier than to give rein to the instincts of 
greed, pugnacity, and rancour, now hard held in 
by sentiment and the common peril; to step back 
and walk blindly in a country where all is fac- 
tion; where class shuns class, and men and women 
are bitterly opposed; where the youth of the na- 
tion is all the time running to seed; where children 
go hungry and millions throughout the land are 
miserably housed and fed; where the access to 
justice is often still beyond the reach of the poor; 
where helplessness is not yet a guarantee against 
ill-usage. Once the war effort is over, nothing 
will be easier than — from a resolved and united 
nation — to become a crowd pressing this way and 
that, without view and without \dsion, seeking 
purse and place or, at the best, fulfilment of small, 
factious policies. 

No one can tell yet what will be the world 
sequel of this war — ^whether it will bring a long 

366 



A LAST WORD 

peace or other wars; the enlargement of democ- 
racy or the hardening of autocratic rule; the 
United States of Europe or a congery of dis- 
trustful Powers working for another "Day." 
Only one thing we know, that in our charge will 
be our own national life, to make or to mar; to 
prepare against whatever fortime the outer world 
shall brew, to prepare against the subtle march 
of inward dissolution. Our future does not lie 
on the knees of the gods; it hes in our own hands, 
and hearts, and brains, and the use that we shall 
make of them. 

Swift is the descent to hell, and no wings fly 
so fast thither as the wmgs of material success. 
Shall we go that way ? Or shall we, having fixed 
our eyes on a goal far beyond the finish of this 
war, quietly, resolutely, in om* conduct to the 
outer world and in our national life, begin at once 
transmuting into deeds those words: Freedom, 
Health, Justice, for all? 

As a man thinks and dreams, so does he act. 
It is time to think and dream a little of the future, 
while the spirit of unity is on us, the vision of our 
country with us; so that, when we see again the 
face of Peace we may continue to act in unity, 
having in our hearts the good of our great land, 
and in our eyes the vision of her, growing ever to 
truer greatness and beauty. 

367 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

(Read at a conference on the National Life of the Allied 
Countries, Stratford-on-Avon, August, 1916) 

I suppose there are Britons who have never 
seen the sea; thousands, perhaps — ^unfortunate. 
But is there a Briton who has not in some sort 
the feeling that he is a member of a great ship's 
crew? Is there one who never rejoices that his 
Land sails in space, unboarded, untouched by 
other lands? It must be strange to be native 
of a country where, strolling forth, one may pass 
into the fields or woods of another race. In aU 
that we are, have been, and shall be, the sea comes 
first — the sea, sighing up quiet beaches, thun- 
dering off headlands, the sea blue and smiling 
under our white cliffs, or lashing the long sands, 
the sea out beyond foreshore and green fields, or 
rolling in on wind-blown rocks and wastes. The 
sea with its smile, and its frown, and its rest- 
less music; the grim, loyal, protecting sea — our 
mother and our comrade, our mysterious friend ! 

The ancients dreamed of 'the islands of the 
blessed'; we of these green and misty isles almost, 
I think, beheve that we inhabit them. 

A strange and abiding sense is love of Country ! 
Though reason may revolt, and life here be hard, 

371 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

ugly, thankless, though one may even say, 'I 
care no more for my own countrymen than for 
those of other lands; I am a citizen of the world !' 
No use! A stealing love has us fast bound; a 
web of who knows what memories of misty fields, 
and scents of clover and turned earth; of summer 
evenings, when sounds are far and clear; of long 
streets, half-lighted, and town sights, not beauti- 
ful but homely; of the skies we were born be- 
neath, and the roads we have trodden all our 
lives. What memories, too, of names and tales, 
small visions all upside down perhaps, yet true 
and warm to us because we Hstened and saw 
when we were no older than foals at their dams' 
heels. It is not our actual Country, but its halo, 
that we love — the halo each one of us has made 
for it. There are evenings under the moon, dewy 
mornings, late afternoons, when over field and 
wood, over moor or park or town, unearthliness 
hovers; so, over our native land hovers a glamour 
that burns brighter when we are absent, and flames 
up in glory above her when we see her driven or 
hard pressed. No man yet knows the depths of 
our love for these islands of the blessed. May no 
man ever know it ! 

And to each of us there will be some ingle- 
nook where the spirit of our country most in- 
habits, where the fire of hearth and home glows 

372 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

best, and draws us with its warmth from wander- 
ings bodily or spiritual. To know that in these 
islands no native-born but has a quiet shrine, be 
it lovely, or devoid of earthly beauty, where he 
or she in fancy worships the whole land, gives 
reahtj^ to the word Patriotism. 

This love of country is so deep and sacred that 
we cannot utter it; let us not forget that it is as 
deep and sacred to the natives of other lands ! 

Looking back into the dark of history, how 
quaint is our origin — offspring of invading rob- 
bers, wave after wave, for some two thousand 
years before the Norman Conquest ! If these are 
not in truth the blessed islands that the ancients 
dreamed of, they seem to have been sufficiently 
attractive. Who our Neolithic forenmners were, 
whence they came, or whether they were here 
before om- isles cut loose from the mainland and 
set out on an endless voyage, we shall never, I 
suppose, know. A strain of their blood, more 
than we think perhaps, must still be alive within 
us; the rest of it is freebooting fluid — Celts and 
Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Normans, all 
robbers; blent at last — and in Ireland not yet 
quite blent — ^to the observance of honour among 
thieves. 

Ever since the sea brought us here — ^all but the 
NeoHthic few — ^in the long-ships of the past, what 

373 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

a slow, ceaseless fusing has gone to the making of 
the modem Briton — that most singular among 
men! I hold the theory — how far scientifically 
tenable I know not — that the continued vitality 
of a race depends on two main conditions: The 
presence of many strains of blood not too vio- 
lently differing one from the other, and the ab- 
sence of too much sun. I hold that nations may 
become too inbred; or may have the sap dried 
out of them by heat. In Britain we cannot yet 
have reached the point of perfect fusion — ^are not 
in danger for a long time of becoming too inbred. 
Nor can the sun be called a desperate peril. We 
are ^game/ as they say, for centuries yet; xmless — ! 
For our besetting danger is another. 

How many of us realise that far beyond all 
other nations we are town dwellers, subject to 
town bhght ? That is a new, an insidious, malady, 
whose virulence we have hardly yet appreciated 
or had time to study. Can it be arrested by 
homoeopathy — or must sweeping allopathic rem- 
edies be applied? Will town blight be cured by 
better town conditions, and our gradual adapta- 
tion — or by going back to the land? By both. 
But, if not by both within the next half-century, 
then — I fear — ^by neither. Town blight has had 
as yet but two full generations to lay its grip on 
us. We have time for its defeat if we have cour- 

374 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

age and sense. But it is an enemy more deadly 
than the Germans; not so easy to see and to 
fight against ! 

When children first discover gooseberries or 
other kindly fruits of the earth, they eat too 
quickly and too much. We were the first people 
to discover the means to 'happiness' known as 
modern industrialism. With huge appetite we 
set upon it, and are caught by surfeit. I have 
heard this view of our case seriously countered 
— ^the Cockney and the northern townsman are 
thought to be om- most vital types. Verily they 
have a pretty courage; but to such as are light- 
hearted on this matter I would say: 'Go, in sum- 
mer, to some seaside place where humble towns- 
folk have come to make holiday, as healthy and 
little pallid as they ever are, and — ^watch. Then 
wing off to some remote fishing village, or coun- 
tr}^side where such peasants as are left are not 
too badly off, and — watch. Then summon your 
candour, and tell in which of your two fields of 
observation you have seen more vigour of Hmb, 
beauty of face, or at all events more freedom from 
petty distortions and a look of dwindHng.' 

I cannot explain exactly what I mean by town 
blight. It is not mere pallor or weakHness, but 
rather a loss of balance — a tendency to jut here 
and be squashed in there; an over-narrowness 

375 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

of head; an over-development of this feature at 
the expense of that; with a look of living too 
fast, of giving out more than is taken in. The 
modifications of the Briton through town life are 
countless, and all the time subtly going on. I do 
not deny that there is much good, too, in the 
transformation: the quickening of a temperament 
by no means quick; a widening of sympathies in 
a character not too sympathetic; the deepening 
of humaneness and the love of justice in a nature 
with an old Adam in it of brutality. A frank 
humanitarian and humanist, like myself, dwells 
cheerfully on that, for it does seem, while other 
changes in human life are always arguable — such 
as the increase of efficiency purchased by loss of 
breadth and kindliness; economic gain by loss of 
health and balance; greater will-power by loss 
of understanding and tolerance — ^that the increase 
of humane instinct, with which is bound up the 
love of justice, is alone sheer gain. Some, I know, 
think it bought at the expense of what is called 
'virility.' To those I recommend a steady glimpse 
at the modern British sailor. Of late years I have 
been reading accounts of Arctic and Antarctic 
exploration. There is no better study for those 
who doubt whether men can be brave and hard 
and at the same time chivalrous and gentle. 
One returns from mental travel with those heroes 

376 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

convinced that true humanity and gentleness and 
justice actually depend on bravery and stoicism. 
Picked men, you say! Well, go to the British 
Fleet, or the British Army — ^in a word, to the 
British male population of robust age — and you 
will come back, I beheve, with the same general 
conviction — that where the truest bravery is there 
also is humaneness — ^that these quahties grow 
naturally twined together. All evidence from the 
war proves that the Briton is as hard a fighter, 
and far better behaved, than he ever was. Better 
behaviour imder war conditions means nothing 
but increase in each individual fighter, of just 
and himaane instinct, and that sense of personal 
responsibility which is the other main advantage 
coming to us from town life. In towns a man 
finds his level, acquires the corporate sense, sees 
himself as part of the civic whole, learns that his 
own ills are shared by too many to bear thinking 
of save with a touch of humour and contempt. 
The British sailor whose shattered arm was be- 
ing dressed in the battle of Jutland weU summed 
up what I mean: "To hell with my arm, doctor; 
I want to get up there again and give the hoys a 
handj^^ That would seem very much the spirit 
of the modem town-bred British. 

Now, is there anything which in some sort dif- 
ferentiates this Britain of ours from other lands? 

377 



THE ISLANDS OF THE; BLESSED 

A country is such a huge congloiiieration of types 
and quahties; such a seething mass of energies! 
It seems sometimes as impossible to thread one's 
way to the heart of that maze as to fix the pat- 
tern of a thousand gnats dancing in a sunHt 
lane! One turns eyes here, there, follows this 
movement and that, thinks one has the clue, falls 
back gaping. Is there any essence which sets 
the British soul apart as an oak is set apart, from 
beech or lime tree? Can there, indeed, be any 
single essence in a land where Iberian and Celt, 
Saxon and Norseman, still quarrel in the blood? 
I think there is, and will hazard an attempt to 
throw on the screen some faint shadow of the 
elusive thing. 

Take certain salient British characteristics: 
Our peculiar national imder-emphasis and stolid- 
ity; our want of imagination; that desire to have 
things both ways — ^which is generally called our 
'hypocrisy'; our turn of ironic humour; our bull- 
dog grip; our lack of joie de vivre; our snobbish- 
ness — dying, but dying very hard; our perpetual 
desire for the moral in action or art; our regard 
for 'good form'; our slow dumb ideaHsm, hand 
in hand with our profound distrust of ideas; our 
propensity for grumbling imder prosperity, and 
our cheeriness under hardship; our passion for 
games, and our creed of 'playing the game'; our 
love of individual liberty — even our perversity 

378 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

and crankiness. . , . Take them all, and con- 
sider whether there is not some fmidamental im- 
derlying instinct. 

I beHeve that the mainspring of the British 
soul, concealed by a layer of mental laziaess from 
supei-ficial scrutiny is nothing but an inveterate 
instinct for competition. The Briton is the most 
competitive creature on the face of the earth — 
save possibly the American of British descent. 
True — ^we would, as they phrase it on the turf, 
make a race with a donkey, for our climate has 
certainly sluggarded the circulation of our blood. 
None the less, we have a perpetual secret itch for 
competition, so bone deep that most of us do not 
even know of it. All through our Hves we are 
playing a match. When the Briton is not secretly 
pitting himself against somebody or something, 
he can hardly be said to be alive. I do not think, 
speaking racially, that he cares so much for 
what he gets by the game as for the game itself 
and victory in it. He sets little store by the per- 
fection of his handiwork so long as it beats the 
handiwork of others; or — and this is the saving 
grace — so long as in the accomplishment he has 
defeated the slackness or cowardice in his own 
nature — ^won the match within himself. 

Let us turn them over one by one, those salient 
British characteristics: 

StoHdity! Under-emphasis ! It is surely noth- 
379 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

ing but contempt of fuss; and what is fuss but 
allowing too much importance to the task or 
person you are up against ? The instinct of com- 
petition forbids that in the Briton; he is so com- 
petitive that he does not deign to let people see 
that he is stretching himself. 

Want of imagination ! That is partly the men- 
tal laziness, no doubt, engendered by our thick 
cHmate; but much of it, I think, is only the sub- 
conscious refusal by our competitive natures to 
see too quickly and clearly what we have before 
us, lest we be discouraged. A great help — ^to 
have muddled through most of the battle before 
you are aware of the size and length of it ! 

Our rather grim turn of humour! Is it not 
generally a jest at the expense of a fate which 
thought it could set us down? 

Our hj^ocrisy ! One would not admit a phys- 
ical defeat, but clench the teeth and have at it 
again; then, how admit moral defeat? Impossi- 
ble! Face must be saved — ^instinctively again, 
imconsciously — ^for the last thing we plead guilty 
to is our 'hypocrisy.' 

The bulldog grip — speaks for itself. 

Our lack of joie de vivre! We are plajdng a 
match — ^we have no chance or time to relax, to 
lie on our backs and let the sunlight warm our 
faces. We have not time to give ourselves up to 

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THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

life; there is so much to beat — ^we are playing a 
match. 

Our veneration for rank of every kind ! Snob- 
bishness! This is surely nothing but our recog- 
nition of the value of attainment; acknowledg- 
ment of victories won, if not in the present, in 
the past; tacit confession that we, too, want to 
win such victories. 

Our craving for a moral! Well, what is a 
moral, if not the triumph of what we call 'good' 
over what we call ' evil ' ? We crave that triimiph 
— ^not only in action, but also, I fear, in art. Art 
must not merely excite within us impersonal emo- 
tion; it must be useful to us in our match with 
life — A pity ! 

Our worship of 'good form' is partly dread 
of that ridicule which would be a proof of our 
having fallen short, and partly recognition by a 
people who have long lived an exceptionally stable 
social life, that this competitive instinct of oiu*s, 
imchecked by rules, becomes a nuisance to our- 
selves and others. In the same way, our 'play- 
ing the game' is but the necessary check on our 
passion for a match. 

Our inveterate dumb idealism is of course a 
primary constituent element in the fighting na- 
ture; and our distrust of ideas a natural lazy 
dread of being pushed on too fast by that idealism. 

381 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

Our grumbling habits, when there is little or 
nothing to grumble at, show, I think, that in 
slackness and prosperity we are really out of our 
element; while our ironic cheerfulness under 
hardship — ^the cry ' Are we down-hearted ? No-o ! ' 
proves that times of stress suit our competitive 
temperament. 

Our love of individual liberty! A man, the 
joy of whose life is winning an event over him- 
self or others, naturally desires the utmost lati- 
tude for these perpetual contests. And so, the 
Briton becomes 'a crank' more often than mem- 
bers of any other race. 

One should never drive theory too far, but I 
seriously believe that the foundation of the 
Briton's soul is this dumb and utter refusal to 
admit that he ever can be beaten, either by him- 
self or any other. He is concerned to win, rather 
than to imderstand or to enjoy. I do not know 
whether tliis is admirable, but I am pretty sure 
that it is true. And behind and beyond all the 
better reasons for pursuing this war to a victori- 
ous end, there is always the inarticulate, intense, 
instinctive feeling, that we must win the match, 
since to fail would mean not only defeat by the 
Germans, but the defeat within us of our will 
and of our own nature. 

If I am right as to this essence of the British 
382 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

soul, what does it signify to the world of our 
friends and enemies? 

It means, of course, a rock on which our friends 
may build — it assures the fulfilment of all pledges, 
and endurance till the day of victory; but it 
carries with it a certain element of danger. Vice 
treads on the heels of Virtue in the competitive 
soul. How far may our nature become a peril, 
not only to ourselves, but to our AUies and the 
whole world ? 

Underneath aU our resolution not to fall short 
of such measiu-e of victory as shall free the in- 
vaded lands, and prove to all that the over-riding 
of a httle harmless neutral country has not paid; 
underneath this absolute resolve, which of us 
does not long for a real peace, an end of a world 
that is like a powder magazine which malevolent 
or foolish hands can fire at any moment? The 
difficulties that He between us and such a peace 
are very great; far be it from me to minimise 
them, or blink the seeming impasse of the situ- 
ation ahead. When the end draws near, in every 
warring land the great diunb mass-of-the-people's 
only thought will be: 'For God^ssake, have done 
with it, and let us get back to life !' But, jutting 
out of this mass, in each country, and especially 
in our own, there will be, on the one hand, ideahsts 
and dreamers, a little band, seeing a vision too 

383 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

visionary, telling of it to the wind; on the other, 
a far larger, louder band of men of affairs, judging 
of matters with the immediate eye, for immediate 
profit, or, as they will rather phrase it, for per- 
manent profit, under the waving flags of patriot- 
ism; of men talking of a lasting peace and genu- 
inely wishing for it — so long as it does not mean 
foregoing anything, so long as they may let go 
no advantage so dearly bought. Already the 
cry on both sides is for a commercial war start- 
ing from the final battle. All that is stupendously 
natural! But in this medley of demand, how, 
will statesmen steer? Will they, who have to 
remake the world, have a large vision, and see 
that, vital before all else, is the seizing of a chance 
— ^that has never come before and may never 
come again — ^to establish and set up a Court of 
Nations, backed this time by real force? Will 
they grasp the wisdom implicit in the feeling of 
the great dumb multitudes: 'For God^s sake have 
done with it, and let us live!' 

We have not yet got to the moment on which 
the whole future will hang. When we do, I fancy 
that this competitive soul of ours may want too 
much to have things both ways. Whatever the 
terms of the peace that comes, that peace will 
not last without a League of Nations to guarantee 
it; and such a League we cannot have unless 

384 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

impartiaKty be its backbone; unless we mean 
that it shall judge justly, and enforce judgment 
without fear or favour; unless we are willing to 
accept its judgments in all matters, and not 
merely when it suits us. A man does not guar- 
antee the health of his body just by holding his 
neighbotir down; and the true path to security 
and a great future lies in the efforts we make to 
improve ourselves, rather than in those we make 
to injure others. The freedom and fair oppor- 
tunity which are vital to a lasting peace need not 
bar us from national preparedness, from wise 
efforts to save ourselves and our Allies from un- 
fair commercial competition, need not prevent us 
from assuring our safety and improving our cor- 
porate life. But they do mean that we must keep 
free of a militarist and tyrannical spirit. How 
far will our competitive British soul, when peace 
comes, be proof against that virus? Are we, in 
the winning of military victory, going quietly to 
accept moral defeat, letting our ideals turn turtle 
and float with their keels to the stars ? I wonder. 
This League for Peace we talk of — that even 
statesmen talk of — ^will not be born of violent 
minds, but out of level and long-headedness, and 
the desire to benefit not only our own country, 
but the world. It is an undertaking fraught with 
the most poignant difficulty. If you imagine it 

385 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

fledged from birth, with wings full grown — ^if you 
imagine a world disarmed, immediately respon- 
sive to law — ^it is but an Utopian dream. The 
world will assuredly remain armed; at one stride 
one cannot step from hell to heaven. But armed- 
ness need not prevent the nations from estab- 
lishing procedure for the delay of warlike action — 
a tribunal to which all disputes must be referred; 
need not prevent them from pledging themselves 
to forcible support of its decisions, from declar- 
ing commerce sacrosanct between members of the 
League, and punishing by blockade and ostracism 
any nation that betrays its membership, or flouts 
a decision, so that the sanctity of a nation^s com- 
merce may in futm*e depend on that nation's 
loyalty to other nations; nor need it prevent 
States from taking the manufacture of war ma- 
terial out of private hands. Only on the proved 
efficacy of such measiu-es as these will the disarma- 
ment of nations follow, slowly, surely, equally; for 
man will then be acting, as he loves to act, not 
by rote and theory, but on the evidence of facts. 
Is all this a wild-cat notion, or a mere natural 
growth out of what went before the war, and out 
of the terrific tragedy of the war itself — a plan 
tentative and experimental, that may gradually 
force its way to confidence, till the Court of Na- 
tions reaches the unquestioned authority and 

386 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

permanence of each individual nation's courts of 
justice? 

We of the Allied countries must surely long for 
such a plan; nor, I think can any neutral nation 
which has watched and trembled at this war be 
other than well-disposed toward it; and, whatever 
their rulers and journahsts may desire, the peo- 
ples of the Central Empires will not wish to be 
left out. Yet when the time comes for peace dis- 
cussions one sees only too well the deadlock. 
The Allied nations, if victorious, will not want a 
round table seance with their enemies and a 
cosy settlement. The Central Empires will not 
wish to accept forced membership of a League 
for Peace foxmded by their enemies, in which — 
however mistakenly — ^they believe they will al- 
ways be outvoted. This vicious deadlock, how- 
ever, is less real, I think, than it seems. There are 
new forces at work; and if a League for Peace 
can make even a lame and partial start, it may 
by these new forces soon be fortified. After this 
war, deep-planted in the heart of every people, 
whether fighting or looking on, will be the loath- 
ing of national aggressiveness! Such a feeling 
has never existed before because men have never 
before been so stirred, so injured, and so fright- 
ened. We soon forget, of course, all save that of 
which we are constantly reminded; but the after- 

387 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

math of this war will be full of startling revela- 
tions of the ruin it has caused; the world will 
reek with reminder that so-called national as- 
pirations cannot with impimity be aggressively 
pursued; that so-called defensive wars cannot be 
light-heartedly incepted. During the march of a 
war, however terrible, the fascination of strife 
colours and subdues its horror; its heroisms hyp- 
notise, its rancours drug all reason, blur all vi- 
sion. But in the cold thinned blood of a maimed 
future, how different it will all seem, how terrifi- 
cally disproportionate ! 

Love of country has never before had such 
calls made on it; men have never so suffered for 
their patriotism. That, too, must bring a sweep- 
ing reaction, which will gradually force the hands 
of reluctant governments into adhesion to any 
scheme which promises relief from a repetition of 
such agonies. And so, in spite of all the diffi- 
culties, I believe some sort of League for Peace 
will come, imperfect and experimental at first, 
but which, once founded, will wax and grow 
strong, in the real — not merely pious — ^horror of 
war which will follow this fearful carnival. Let 
it but hold together for a few years, survive one 
or two serious trials, and I think no sane nation 
will ever desire its dissolution. 

Such a scheme will not come down to us from 
388 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

Heaven. From our own brains and wills it must 
spring; from our sense of — shall we say — ^the in- 
convenience of wars like this. If the killing and 
disablement of some ten million men, the waste 
of some ten to twenty thousand million pounds, 
persuades us to nothing but the leaving of the 
world exactly as it was, as liable to these irrup- 
tions of death and misery — ^then, better say with 
the Spanish poet, ' Of all the misfortunes of man, 
the greatest is to have been born.' 

Even before the guns cease roaring, shall not 
our nine AlHed peoples agree informally among 
themselves upon the structure of a League for 
Peace, and secure the sympathetic understanding 
of America, and the other neutral countries, on 
whose wisdom and good- will so much depends ? 

I, for one, would wish my Coimtry foremost in 
pursuing this great chance — ^wish that she might 
place all her power in the favouring scale; I would 
wish to see her as ready to submit to the decisions 
of an International Tribunal, as each one of us 
is ready as a matter of course to submit to the 
decisions of our judges. 

We in this green Britain of ours, still free of the 
invader's foot, can measure the value of freedom 
now, looking across to lands waiting for deliver- 
ance. No country of Europe but has suffered, 
during long centuries, outrage and trampling, 

389 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

siege and slaughter, that we have been spared — 
saved by our sea. It is not irony that calls these 
the islands of the blessed. 

But Fortune is a jealous goddess; and offerings 
are due to her who has given us an inviolate 
soil. I seem to see Fortune standing apart, 
watching — ^wondering: 'What have they made — 
what are they going to make of their land?/ I 
seem to see Fortune thinking: 'If I grant them 
success once more, these islanders, are they great 
enough to survive it? Under my smile the em- 
pires of the past one by one went down — ^Assyria, 
Egypt, Persia, Rome, others of long, long ago. 
Will this empire live, or will it too rot away, 
and sink?" 

These empires of the past fell through prosper- 
ity, through inordinate pride, through luxury and 
slavery hand in hand. May Fortune hold up a 
mirror to us, that we see ourselves as we are ! 
Freedom and Humanity are not mere words; 
nor is a people^s greatness measured in acres or 
in pounds, in the number of its ships on the sea, 
or of the rifles it can muster. A people^s great- 
ness is in the breadth and quality of its soul, in 
its fortitude, alertness, justice, gentleness, within 
itself and to the world without; and in its faith 
that man has his fate in his own hands. 

As the individual, so the State; the aggregate 
390 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

of individual virtue decides and shapes the lot 
of nations. May there be no slaves among us 
and none who fatten upon slavery; no brutes 
among us and none who cower under brutality ! 
Let us not hold ourselves as the elect in a blind 
patriotism, but have some vision of the world 
beyond our shores, of its hopes and dreads and 
natural ambitions. A narrow national spirit 
never served mankind! 

Let the sea be our inspiration and our reminder ! 
For, if it is our fortification, the sea is also our 
link with all the world, and the greatest force of 
untamed Nature. It seems to me that they who 
Hve dependent on the sea should never be puffed 
up. Its changing moods and salt winds, its wild- 
ness, beauty, desolation, the sudden fates that 
lurk within it, that leap and clutch and draw 
away from us our best; the great spaces of it 
beneath sun and stars — ^these are constant, and 
to our souls should surely carry breadth, sweep 
out of us the littleness of Imperial complacency. 
The sea is never chained, and the eyes of sailors 
have in them a look that any man might covet 
— a steady fronting of something inscrutable, 
shifting, dangerous. They know the little worth 
of human strength, the need of unity; they know 
that when a man slackens his watch, Fate leaps 
upon him. 

391 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

The ship of each nation sails a sea of incalcu- 
lable currents and uncharted channels. Sailing 
that sea, may we have the eyes of sailors, lest our 
Fate leap upon us ! 

Who would not desire, rushing through the 
thick dark of the future, to stand on the cliffs of 
vision — two hundred years, say, hence — and;view 
this world? 

Will there then be this League for War, this 
caldron where, beneath the thin crust, a boiling 
lava bubbles, and at any minute may break 
through and leap up, as now, jet high? Will 
there still be reek and desolation, and man at 
the mercy of the machines he has made; still be 
narrow national poHcies and rancours, and such 
mutual fear, that no country dare be generous? 
Or will there be over the whole world something 
of the glamour that each one of us now sees 
hovering above his own country; and men and 
women — all — ^feel they are natives of one land? 
Wlio dare say ? 

When the gims cease fire and all is still, from 
the woods and fields and seas, from the skeleton 
towns of ravaged countries, the wistful dead will 
rise, and with their eyes accuse us. In that hour 
we shall have for answer only this: We fought 
for a better Future for Mankind ! 

Did we? Do we? That is the great question. 
392 



THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED 

Is our gaze really fixed on the far horizon? Or 
do we only dream it; and have the slain no com- 
fort in their untimely darkness; the maimed, the 
ruined, the bereaved, no shred of consolation? 
Is it all to be for nothing but the salving of na- 
tional prides? And shall the Ironic Spirit fill 
the whole world with his laughter? 

Or shall the nations take the first step in that 
grand march of real deliverance which wiU make 
the whole earth — at last — ^the islands of the 
blessed ? 



393 



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